The Last Dragon Egg
by MotherMizu
Summary: **WARNING: Spoilers ahead**A fat and greasy looking man, wearing a white suit with giant yellow pit stains received wind of one last dragon egg still in existence. He posted the job reward for 400 billion jewels to find the egg and bring it to him. Which is how Team Natsu received their first 100 year quest.**Edited** Image not mine.** [Natsu.D x Lucy H.] Disclaimer FT is not mine.
1. Chapter 1-Prologue

Author's Note: I really hope you guys enjoy this as much as I did writing it. As long as you find some connection with the story then my goal has been set.

A/N: You will see this- **SsS** A LOT because it was the only way I could get Fanfiction to allow me a proper chapter break because my original sign for a chapter break had been this - *** and nothing else I did worked. I tried many combinations etc. So I settled for the three S's if they are distracting I do apologize. If you have any tips on how to do a break without using the line as shown below before the chapter title, that would be fantastic!

Disclaimer: I don't own any of it.

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Chapter 1-Prologue

Stifling forest air became thicker as the humidity reached its peak at 90 percent. A fire pit surrounded by stones, crackled and popped against the wood just past midnight. A group of seven, with one member missing from the campsite, drowned in their own sweat.

One sole groan was what broke the silence, "Whose idea was it to camp out here?" While sprawled out in the dirt completely naked, which showed off many scars and his height, complained. Jet black hair, now filled with grime, grew to be wilder than when he left on this God forsaken quest three years ago, hiding the scar on his forehead further.

"Oi bastard, aren't you an ice mage? If you're that hot, fix it." He was unaffected by the heat, to show off he comfortably rested his broad and battle hardened frame against a tree, then smirked in a cocky way that complemented a well-defined jaw-line, toward the ice mage's suffering. If anyone had seen the dragon slayer's father, he could nearly be mistaken as a twin with longer pink spiked hair. His dragon slayer magic increased during their journey, causing physical characteristics to change permanently. For instance eyes of once onyx are now blood red, with dragon like irises and his skin became so tough, a needle would break against it. Dawning his scarf and a black sleeveless tunic with a flame imprinted buckle at his hips, made the outfit flare out behind him when he crossed his legs and ankles, covered by his usual white pants, except chose black boots instead of sandals. Adjusting his arms in front of his chest, focused and let his magic loose releasing a wave of heat from his person, just to piss off the nudist.

Gray vomited then retaliated with a punch full of ice towards the offender leading into a fight that caused dust to kick up. Both men forgetting their surroundings and who they were with to witness their childish behavior.

The red head's eyebrow twitched, while Wendy groaned due to Gray's state of undress. Sweating profusely herself, rose from her original sitting position, then gave **_that_** look "Are you both being friends?" her deadpan tone and serious expression surprised both of them.

Pausing, corrected themselves in order to appear like it was just a simple sparing session. With wide eyes and panicked expressions, held onto each other as they voiced in unison like the devil himself was after their heads. "A-AYE!"

Erza wasn't so sure. Ever since that fateful day, when she intervened their tense battle during the war, she made it a special case to keep a close eye on them. Apprehension never ceased when it came to these two because their duel wasn't settled, and she prayed it never would be. Glancing at her idiots and then towards her youngest charge made a decision, "Come on Wendy." Snatching the girl's wrist, headed to where Lucy went.

Wendy didn't change much in height or breast size. She still looked twelve. A depressed sigh escaped her as she flicked the bathing suit's green ruffled top, defeated. Really there wasn't much of a choice in the matter, seeing as her heels dragged in the dirt in front of her. A small dainty hand reached out pathetically for Charle to save her, who only shrugged in response.

Flying to face the fiery red head in a black bathing suit, spoke " I'm going to go back and supervise."

"Excellent idea, keep them out of trouble for me."

Charle nodded and flew off towards the direction they came from.

 _ **SsS**_

Rushing water poured over a small cliff as it echoed off the alcove into a wide shallow spring of 72 degrees. Lucy stood amidst the waterfall covered by a white fluffy towel, pleased to be a good enough distance away from the fire and antics of her companions. The 100 year quest turned out be fairly lackluster thus far. The job offered a 400 billion jewel reward for finding a dragon egg rumored to still be in existence and quite possibly _alive_. An extraordinarily rich man wanted the egg for his bizarre collection of weird and exotic pets. Though after years of failed leads they came across a rumor from a small town, that there was a strange presence about this mountain and the forestry was so thick you could easily get lost and never come back. Unfortunately they've searched for weeks and the trail went cold. Filled with disappointment, they stopped to rest near this gorgeous spring in order to figure out their next move.

She was not skipping out on a break away from the others.

Elegant slender hands gently pulled her long, blonde hair off her shoulders as she tilted her head back to face the waterfall directly. Stars shined brightly alongside the moon, creating an ethereal glow upon newly clean skin.

Next thing she knew, limbs and pink hair barrel rolled into her unhinging the towel.

"Naaaatttssuuuuu…" She punched the fire mage's cheek and called for Taurus, whose eyes popped perversely.

"Oh I didn't see you there." Just as he went to question why Taurus was out, a rock hit him upside the head. Retaliating, he picked up a stone ten times larger and threw it back towards his opponent. Some point after the two women departed from camp, there was a trade of insults leading to where they were now.

"Taurus...don't stand there, fix this!" Lucy haughtily pointed, at the same time Taurus sprung a massive nosebleed making him faint and when the entire waterfall began to evaporate; as fire and ice exchanged blows. A deep heady sigh escaped her lips as she put head down into her palm. "Taurus… close gate…" A golden glow encircled the bull as he faded into magical stardust, like a trillion fire flies scattering.

They turned the boulders into elemental cannonballs, Lucy yelled at both of them so flustered she stopped noticing her own nakedness.

Erza and Wendy arrived not long there after. They stood there as disappointment settled seeing the decimated springs.

Gray and Natsu made a grave mistake, a boulder encased in ice on one side and fire on the other managed to bonk the Re-quip mage square in her forehead.

"Oh ho ho...?" Cracking her knuckles darkly, moved in an instant pulverizing them unconscious and began to pull both men back to camp by their ankles. This gave time for Lucy to pick up her towel and join their shortest dragon slayer, with long blue hair tied in pigtails on shore.

Wendy was relieved to be clear of all the ruckus as they walked back. Turning her head to speak with Lucy, noticed as of late, there seemed to be a faraway gaze in the celestial mage when Natsu was in her line of sight. At first she thought it was her imagination. Curiosity got the better of her and used sharp hearing of a dragon to listen in on her blonde friend's heartbeat. For a brief instant it quickened in pace, but calmed down so fast it made her wonder if she heard correctly and looked to her older dragon brother's miserable drooling figure, then back to Lucy inquisitively.

"Is something up?" Lucy stopped and bent down to Wendy's level like she always did and gave her a warm smile.

While shaking her head, put both hands up to emphasize her answer. "Ahhh, no nothing."

"If you're certain. By the way where's Charle and Happy? I haven't seen them for a while..."

"I know Charle went back to camp to keep an eye on things. I'm sure Happy is with her." Wendy grinned her biggest at the thought.

"Yeah." Lucy looped the sky dragon's arm with hers and that's how they continued on.

 _ **SsS**_

All three of their expressions would have been enough to summon the god of death. Their camp appeared as though a tornado whipped through bringing with it a monsoon of subzero ice, as fire affected the surrounding forestry. Erza's wagon had been top of that, they found Happy and Charle had somehow landed themselves in the crossfire.

Both Exceeds were sprawled out on the ground seeing stars.

Before Wendy or Lucy had a chance to react, Erza violently shook Natsu and Gray awake, pointing towards the camp as they cowered in fear. The re-quip mage watched over the guys pick up every splinter, and broken piece to her wagon along with anything else that may have gotten destroyed. Lucy had to star dress in her Aquarius form to put out the fire.

All three ladies sat down exasperated as the guys fixed everything with a fearful demeanor in the background. Despite all the chaos Lucy and Erza sat down in order to figure out their next step. The celestial wizard used Crux and Pyxis for latitude and longitude. The fairly tall re-quip mage used a lacrima map from a new and improved version of the cellular type device; that allowed her to keep in contact with a certain ice mage while on a mission all those years ago, to figure out where they were in relation to the guild.

Squeals of joy could be heard within a twelve block radius.

 _ **SsS**_

It was almost dawn by the time Gray and Natsu were able to crash, for the remainder of what was left of the night. The girls retiring only a little beforehand.

The fire mage laid awake on top of his sleeping bag as he glanced over to the tent their female team members were in. He and Gray were forced to sleep outside. Natsu didn't mind since nature helped quiet echoes of the past, from Igneel's death to their victory in the war, to the instance Lucy embraced him and told him "thank you" for the second time since they destroyed the Eclipse Gate.

They figured out this mountain was only a month of traveling on foot to Magnolia; but if they took two trains and a carriage ride it was just short of three weeks. After everyone heard that, it was a no brain decision on what should be done next. They'll go home tomorrow, rest and continue on from this mountain till the quest was completed.


	2. Chapter 2-Fairy Tail Mischief

A/N: Introductions are droll, however my sensee says our hiragana and our movements in ceremony must be like the water flow. Graceful, elegant and smooth without pause like a river. I want my story to be as my sensee instructs. If further edits are needed then, edit I must. I'm still getting used to Fanfiction's way of doing things. I've even put a warning in the Summary for HOW many spoilers we will come across, though it still hasn't shown up. If you've gotten to chapter 2 than my heart thanks you. Bare with me while I figure out how to work this. Ohh so many tutorials...so so sooo many on youtube...

A/N: I realized after so many edits...I forgot Panther Lily. Like HOW COULD I FORGET PANTHER LILY?! It was like he didn't exist! So I fixed that, he's in here now and I mentioned Alzak and Bisca. I may or may not bring in the Thunder Legion or at least not for a while. For this part i didn't find it necessary I also fixed some holes as far as character location, reactions etc. Never underestimate the smaller characters. They help a story, as I have discovered. For my new readers you'll only see the edits but know this story was holey LOLOL now it shouldn't be as much? I think...I hope...

Disclaimer: No I do not own Fairy Tail.

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Chapter 2-Fairy Tail Mischief

Leave it to Natsu barging in like he owned the place.

"We're back!"

Everyone at Fairy Tail hooted and hollered as they jumped out with a surprise party. "Welcome Back!".

Erza and the others sent word of their return to the Master two weeks prior, giving ample time to prepare.

"Oi Natsu, have a drinking contest with me." Cana already had downed her first barrel of whiskey. This request had everyone's interest piqued. Their fortune teller had never asked Natsu to drink with her before, and they all wondered how he would fair against the red bikini topped drunkard.

With a wipe of his lips from his forearm as though to rid himself of sweat, proudly walked over to Cana, sat down on top the table with one leg on the floor and slammed his hand in between them, "You're on Cana!"

The guild crowded around them, Mira decided to halt her bartending to watch, curious of the outcome.

Nobody except Bacchus has defeated Cana in a drinking contest.

"Lucy…..Natsu is gonna loose for sure." Happy flew and rested in said girl's arms when Lisanna came in from behind, seeing the spectacle unfold before them.

"Natsu can do it. It's Natsu after all, right?" She tilted her head while holding her hands behind her back.

Lucy and Happy stared at Lisanna, then at each other and then back at Natsu. They both scoffed.

"Natsu barely drinks anything," With blush tinted cheeks continued, "I've never seen him get so drunk he had to be carried, usually after a shot or a pint, he stops."

The youngest of three siblings listened on as her very curvy and blonde friend spoke. It still hurt that it seemed Natsu had no romantic feelings for herself, if he ever did. Short white hair and blue eyes subtly took on a downcast expression knowing if Natsu felt for anyone, it was Lucy. So why hadn't he taken that step. Unless he wasn't aware of it himself, or he left things unsaid for a reason. It wasn't subtle enough for the girl in question to catch it.

"You okay?"

Her head snapped up from melloncholly musings. "Yeah! I agree with you, I just had somethings on my mind is all."

"If you're certain..."

A smooth voice shouted breaking the two from a potentially dangerous topic.

"Fire whiskey for me please." Mira, upon hearing the request, had Elfman bring several barrels of Fire Whisky over.

Lucy decided moved over to where he was on the table. "Natsu…do you **_really_** think this is a good idea…" Bad feelings were rarely wrong when it came to the fire mage. All the blonde could do was advise him that his current choice, was not exactly the best one. The dragon slayer rarely listened. Speaking of dragon slayers she hadn't seen Levy and Gajeel, nor Wendy and Laxus for that matter. Scanning the crowd, she also didn't see Gray or Juvia. It seemed all the guild's immediate couples, had disappeared for the night.

"Nah Luce, it'll be fine. I can beat Cana any day of the week."

Gajeel walked in through the door with long heavy steps, making it over to the guild's personal harbinger of chaos in record time, just to smack him upside the head."Fire brain…" Black shaggy hair now trimmed just below his shoulders received a flaming fist that came straight for his metal studded face, which he hardened to stop the punch. Panther Lily who was never far behind the Redfox family walked in behind, hoping to keep his friend out of trouble.

This pissed off the one who threw the punch more.

A brawl kicked up before the drinking contest ever got started.

"So much for keeping you out of trouble...Gajeel what if-" He tried to reason with him, he honestly did before _the wife_ showed up and saw his behavior.

"Gajeel!" Levy finally had caught up to her husband and tapped her foot vigorously, holding their kid in her arms while very pregnant with their second. Her husband stopped mid punch distracted at the reprimand, when Natsu's fist finally made a connection. "We talked about this, no fighting on the first day. We want Zinc to learn better manners."

Panther Lily went wide eyed. _'Too late!'_

 _"_ I thought you were going to keep him out of trouble..."

"Ah listen Levy, it started before I walked in the door."

He eyed his exceed in mock hurt. "Traitor..."

Their son, whom looked like a mini version of himself with blue hair, wriggled about shouting, "Fight! Fight! Fight!" making it harder for the script mage to keep a good grasp on him.

The metal eating slayer proudly strode over and relieved his wife of their son by placing him on his shoulders. "Gee hee, my kid alright."

Levy threw her arms up exasperated and went to find Lucy, who removed herself to speak with Mira by the bar since nothing became of the challenge. Happy was sitting on the bar next to the two women, as his friend with a scar over his left eye sat down next to him as he leaned back tiredly.

"Redfox getting you into more trouble?"

He moaned. "When doesn't he ever, now that the two are married I fear Levy's wrath. She is sweet as can be, but pregnant and angry..." Shuddering at the thought of incidents while she was pregnant with Zinc. He heard laughter from the one who asked the question. "Oi it's not funny!"

"Oh I think it is."

Cana was tired of being ignored and decided to drink her second barrel.

Elfman and a few others got mixed into the fray, high on testosterone itching to hash it out with their unruly fire mage. However Natsu paused to take a look at Levy while she spoke with his counterpart and Mira.

Gajeel found the master rolling in his wheel chair moments prior, had been in the middle of a conversation when he halted; because Zinc, no more than two years old, used his father's hair as a way to balance himself, began to furiously pat his dad's face in repetition to get his attention while wiggling his legs over his perch. "Daddy! Stoopid fiya man ish look'n at momma..."

Hearing his son's concern stopped to watch his fellow dragon slayer's line of sight. He stepped away from Markarov ( who looked amused) and in front of Natsu flicking him in the forehead as if he knew what the man was thinking. "Don't even, fire mongrel."

"Geehee, stoopid fiya man..." Little blue hair and red eyes grinned toothily.

Levy happened to hear the exchange then beamed with warmth, as she held her stomach lovingly, "It's alright Gajeel. I don't think he's ever interacted with a pregnant woman before. Come here Natsu."

Natsu, obeyed and couldn't take his eyes off her stomach. "Can I?" He kneeled down to the floor, he noticed Levy smelled like Gajeel. She was herself, but there was no doubt who she belonged too. The source of the scent was found in the alchemy symbol for the iron dragon on Levy's neck. He gave Gajeel an eyebrow raise, as though the iron eater lost his mind.

However said man missed it, concerned with Levy's train of thought and went to protest. Resulting with a stern hand in his face from his small wife, he was silenced instantly.

Natsu put his very large and callused hands around her stomach hesitantly, as if he were afraid to break her. This action slightly ruffled the orange floor length dress. He sucked in a breath, startled at feeling the baby kick. It made his heart flutter and for the first time in his life, wondered what it would be like to have his own. If Gajeel could manage a family, why not himself?

Levy's voice broke him out of his revere.

"A baby changes everything Natsu. It's a part of who we are, it's a life we made ourselves, that we have to take care of and nurture, to help them know the difference between right and wrong."

He nodded his pink head in understanding, then felt a touch on his shoulder. He would know that touch from anywhere, he looked up to see Lucy grinning down at him with a smile that could slaughter a thousand men. She kneeled beside him, caressing the length of his arms with her fingertips, going under his hands so she could feel the baby kick too. She then put her own hands on top of his to guide it around Levy's stomach so he knew where to look.

Happy hopped off the bar with Panther Lily, as both exceeds stared at all three humans intently.

The guild instantly calmed down as they watched, nobody wanted to miss this precious, and adorable moment.

Lisanna held her head low clenching her shirt top where her heart was, not wanting to observe more of the ironically private moment that was actually quite public and left without anyone noticing. Except Mira who held a sad knowing look upon her sister's exit.

Lucy whispered into his ear with a very hushed tone, it gave him pleasant chills, and he looked at her in a way that was more intimate than what either of them realized, "Feel it? Babies move constantly in the womb, so sometimes they are hard to find." Natsu felt another kick from Levy's stomach. Satisfied, Natsu and Lucy pulled away in sync with one another.

Gajeel let out a breath he didn't know he had and smiled ear to ear, it was almost too much for him. "You'll understand one day Natsu." He didn't hesitate to slap his fellow dragon slayer on the back as hard as he possibly could.

"Ow, eat shit rusty piece of iron." Gajeel just walked away waving off at him as he went to chat with some of the others.

"Shame Wendy and Charlie are nowhere to be found. If she doesn't come soon she'll miss seeing you." Resting her person against the frame of the bar looked about. Natsu was quiet next to her and stared at his hands where he felt the kick.

Levy watched them both tenderly, and rather disappointed the two hadn't progressed more than when Team Natsu left."I'll see her soon, I'm sure." Letting out a yawn, cutely rubbed her eyes and blinked tiredly.

Gajeel's hearing caught the yawn, and went over to pick up his wife bridal style also smelling her fatigue. He could pick up when she was in distress, and/or sick, or any other scent changes. Exhaustion got to Zinc too. "See ya later fire brain…" He walked off still carrying his kid on his shoulders and Levy in his arms back to their home.

"Lucy?" Happy flew up to her eye level, "Is Natsu alright, he's acting weird..."

Holding up a paw looked at Natsu "I too am curious."

"He's fine, he felt a baby kick for the first time in his life. I would be acting strange too. He'll be back to his usual self in no time."

"Is it really that special?" His only answer was Lucy giggling at him and hugging him tight.

"When you have kittens you'll see." Happy turned red at the verbal suggestion, him and Charlie with kittens? Charlie barely looked at him, let alone accepted any gifts he tried to give.

Panther Lily managed to get on top of the bar where his blue friend was being held and patted his shoulder. "Don't worry, I'm sure Charle will come around eventually."

Not long after Gajeel, Levy and Zinc left, Gray showed up with Juvia, followed by Wendy and Romeo. Laxus showed up five minutes after everyone else, surprisingly without the Thunder Legion.

Apparently Wendy left to show off her new magic with Romeo, which meant Charle was with them as chaperone. Everyone seemed to be coming back with either a friend, or a lover, except Erza and Laxus who was alone.

Due to further investigation via Mira, the take-over mage told Lucy that Jellal finally called for her; so she left immediately and should be back in time for more festivities and that the Thunder Legion took on a job without Laxus, wanting to prove how strong they got to impress him. Laxus sent them off proudly.

Lucy continued her observations, everyone in the guild was either beginning to test the waters of romance, or had a full blown family like Alzak and Bisca or Gajeel and Levy. Yet she never had a boyfriend, not once in her life. Sure she dressed in a revealing fashion and sometimes used her feminine wiles in order to achieve her way, however she kept a fairly modest attitude. Still Lucky Lucy Heartfilia had no luck in love herself. The blonde blamed a certain fire mage for that one. She was so sure Natsu would have confessed the morning after the Amateur Novelist award celebrations. Yet he didn't. Which left her heart and mind stranded.

Natsu broke out of his awe seeing Grey and Laxus enter, deciding to taunt them a bit.

Juvia willingly left Gray's side to speak with her ex-love rival and proceeded to ask every question she could muster. "Has Natsu confessed to Lucy? Juvia thinks it would be nice if he did so. Gray-sama confessed to Juvia at Lucy's party. We were discussing it a bit. Gray-sama wants to take Juvia out on a date before you leave again. How long will you be gone for? Juvia hopes it won't be so long this time, otherwise Juvia will hunt Gray down and bring him back." A sharp glare appeared in dark pupils to solidify her threat, almost as if fire surrounded her.

"Ah he he hee...Juvia..." Lucy responded quietly, hoping Natsu wouldn't hear, "Juvia…I think there's no hope for Natsu and me. I'm not sure Natsu will ever take that step."

"Juvia wonders why you haven't initiated anything either."

"Juvia, I think it's because I fear rejection. Rejection from him, would be too much." Juvia hugged Lucy with all her might as Lucy fought tears.

 _ **SSS**_

"I'm fed the fuck up, why haven't things changed between you two, **_asshole_**?" Gray was prepared for an ice-make attack.

"What's it to you!" Their conversation piqued Lucy's interest and she got closer to hear them, but out of sight to where they couldn't see her there.

"How dense are you flame nuts?"

"I bet your dick is so frozen, that Juvia can't use it!" With that comment it was a mini war, the celestial mage didn't know why she even bothered to try and listen, seeing the results. With a deep sigh continued onward and out to her apartment, only to run into Erza and Jellal, both having a serious blush on their faces. Lucy rather bored, decided to give Natsu a little trouble. "Erza, Gray and Natsu are fighting again. They're getting serious this time."

Erza stormed in without hesitation, then from the distance Lucy heard both men go "ERZA! We…we aren't fighting, see friends…" Then her name came through the door, laced with the sound of betrayal, "LUCY!" Chuckling to herself went about her merry way.

 _ **SsS**_

Long jeans and short sleeved shirts, complimented with black boots that clopped against stone as she walked along the bank. The two fisherman called after her to be careful. In response waved them off with an "Aye aye" sounding very similar to a certain blue Exceed while reflecting on how Natsu told her they'd always be together. She guessed it was as close to a confession she would ever get from the dragon slayer. Hand on her summon keys pulled out Aquarius's key. They found it alongside the shore to one of the beaches they came across, just waiting for her there. She sighed contentedly at the recovery of her dearest friend then pulled out her apartment key at the door and finally stepped inside.

Turning on the light saw an exhausted exceed and a plastered Natsu on her bed. She left the guild not 15 minutes ago. ' _How did they even…._ '

"Happy, how? How did you two get into my apartment before me? Natsu wasn't drunk yet. As far as I knew his contest with Cana had been void."

"He took her on, seeing how she was four barrels in and drank six barrels of fire whisky all at once to catch up to her, then instantly got sick. He pointed to where you left, so we flew over ahead, knowing you never lock your window. Cana still won."

"Stupid cat." Lucy took a deep breath and adjusted aggravation personified in her bed, deciding on the couch that night. "Happy you are sleeping with me."

He really had no room to argue. "Aye…"


	3. Chapter 3-The Drunkard

A/N: Completely disheveled in her yukata looks like she saw a battle field. "I think...I think I've finally figured out fanfiction. My story outlines look like they should on the website. I think..." *begins to eyeball the whisky*

Disclaimer: Fairy Tail doesn't belong to I.

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Chapter 3-The Drunkard

A very loud crash, some stumbling, what she swore was the bathroom door practically breaking off its hinges followed by a hurl, caused Lucy to wake up in the middle of the night. Leaving Happy on the couch turned on the light to the bathroom, only to see the once proud fire mage halfway to the toilet, with one hand in the bowl while his own emissions covered his buttoned up vest.

"Happy wake up, I need you!"

Happy immediately complied, hearing her from across the apartment, to help Lucy pick up Natsu. He didn't get the best grip and accidentally dropped the fire mage over onto her person.

Natsu hung his head down and groggily pointed up and dropped his hand only to throw up more, except all down her chest and stomach."Stop… the vehicle… Lucy….."

"AAwwwwuuuggghhh! WHY ME?!" This is why she told Natsu that drinking with Cana would be a very bad idea, knowing if he ever got plastered it would be worse than his motion sickness.

"Happy, I keep some emergency Hakobe ice in my freezer. Go get it." She attempted to get the dragon slayer into the tub, achieving very little with his arms hanging over the edge, followed by immediate grunting on her part. "How…are you.. so… heavy..."

"But I thought we gave that ice to the people who posted the job all those years ago."

You could hear a bemoaned sound of suffering from the man now half in and out of the tub.

"I'll explain later, just go get it!"

"Aye, sir!"

After great effort, finally pushed him the rest of the way into the tub as she followed suit. Lucy stripped out of her pajamas and pulled Natsu's clothes off as well, except his boxers, thinking that he can deal with it when he's sobered some.

Happy arrived at the scene holding a small chunk of Hakobe ice, to witness a drunken and delirious Natsu against a very naked Lucy.

"Lucy is perverted…"

"I will tear your whiskers off, if you continue with that thought."

"Too late." Happy had a very mischievous grin.

Clenching her teeth hissed."Just, bring me, the Hakobe ice…."

He flew and sat on the edge of the tub. "Here ya go Lucy."

Lucy took the Hakobe ice and forced Natsu to eat a piece of it, then turned on the hot water washing both of them in order to get rid of the foul smell. "After learning how useful Hakobe ice was, I posted a job with a 40,000 jewel reward to other guilds. I keep it around for emergencies."

Happy watched with concern as Lucy diligently took care of the fire mage by washing his hair, then saw her staring at him grimly, "Uhhh... how did his vomit get on your fur?"

Happy's eyes went wide, then he went green, which turned into to his cheeks puffing up, "No, no no no no no" Lucy started to panic with Natsu's head now lulled against her shoulder as she wrapped her arms underneath his torso propping him up as much as possible, while the water came down against their skin. There was little she could do to avoid it as the blue Exceed barfed all over both of them.

You could hear her screams of detest from a mile away.

It took most of the night to get all three of them and the bathroom cleaned up. The Hakobe ice did wonders for both her boys.

 _ **SsS**_

He awoke in the tub hazy and realized after sitting up, that his body was clean everywhere else except his boxers. Turning his head found Happy and Lucy cuddling against the bathroom wall. She was in a fresh, vomit free, soft blue tank top and black underwear. Natsu, still fairly drunk but no longer queasy, changed into fresh black briefs he recently started to keep over at her apartment, then picked her up and carried both her and Happy over to the pink fluffy bed. After laying them down he joined in with them as he placed his arms behind his head to stare at the ceiling, contemplative on his previous conversation with the guys.

 _ **SsS**_

 _Gray and Laxus of all people had been down his throat about none other than Lucy._

 _"_ _She has waited long enough don't you think?" Placing hands on his hips, had already stripped down to his boxers._

 _"_ _What are you talking about?" Natsu, carefree as always, sincerely had no idea what Gray was on about._

 _"_ _You aren't making any sense." He crossed his legs and put his well-toned arms behind his head, bored with this conversation._

 _"_ _Natsu, surely you can't be this dense." Laxus put his hands over his eyes wondering how he got involved in this conversation in the first place, oh right he too wanted answers, "Are you in love with Lucy, or not." Straight to the point, because that's all the fire mage would understand._

 _Natsu practically fell out of his seat and gave a really sharp hesitant look in Laxus's direction "I….what makes you think I am? She's nakama right?" He resumed his previous relaxed position._

 _Striking yellow blonde hair with his kept cut from a few years ago, put his fist in the table breaking it to splinters which knocked Natsu to the floor. "You_ **know** _, that_ **we know** **you,** _better than_ **that** _." He didn't understand how the kid could be so stupid. Did he think they were dumb? There's no way Natsu..._

 _'…_ Wait this is Natsu. Yes of course he can be that blind... _'_

 _Scanning for a certain blonde, not wanting her to hear any of this brushed himself off. "Get off it." He was getting royally pissed off being drilled into._

 _He gestured to the door with one arm "_ _Fine, someday someone tall, dark and powerful, will come along and openly shower her with sappy shit." Crossing his arms was very pleased with himself, because his statement received a nice reaction._

 _Natsu was now standing two inches from his rival's face, still having to look slightly up at him. But not too much they were practically the same height._

 _"_ _Jealous much?" Gray decided to push him further knocking his forehead with Natsu's. "In fact, I see guys asking her out all the time. She_ **almost** _said_ **yes** _to a few." He knew he was pushing hard buttons and covered his fist in ice prepared for the brawl, which froze anything else around him._

 _The dragon slayer burst his own fist in flames, which caught surrounding booths on fire. He was done with their prodding about things he felt they had no business prying into. Not to mention the very thought of Lucy being with anyone got his blood to boil, but why was that?_

 _Laxus waved them off, leaving before he got caught in the middle of it as more insults were thrown around. "I'm out guys, Natsu really just snag the girl." Though he knew his presence had long been forgotten._

 _"_ _What's it to you!" One good punch to Gray's gut had been blocked by ice._

 _"_ _How dense are you flame nuts?" Gray made an ice hammer and attempted to crash it into Natsu's skull._

 _"_ _I bet your dick is so frozen, that Juvia can't use it." Blocking the attack by melting the ice went at it. Both were even in magical strength, so it was thrown to the wayside and it became physical._

 _ **SsS**_

Rolling over to face Lucy, brought his chest to press against her back as she wiggled subconsciously intertwining their legs to get comfortable against him. Natsu adjusted himself as he buried his nose into her hair, breathing in greedily. There were rare moments like this when all his walls came down. The girl in his arms was the only one who could do that to him.

"Like hell, I'll let anyone take you." Her response was a shift to lay on her back and smacking him in the face while still asleep.

"Weirdo."


	4. Chapter 4-Jax

A/N: "Oooh? Are they or aren't they? Isn't that the question the entire series tortured us with? They certainly tested the line a few times from what I read. These two really are frustrating to read and/or watch.

A/N part 2: Are my author's notes still running into the chapter bar? STILL?! Last I checked they were...I think I fixed it...maybe...

A/N:THEY ARE STILL RUNNING INTO THE CHAPTER BAR! Omg why?! *Head desks and chucks the expensive matcha and pours whisky into her chawan instead.* "Attempt number 35 here we go..."

Disclaimer: Fairy Tail is still not mine

* * *

Chapter 4-Jax

Morning came and Lucy wasn't surprised to find Natsu in her bed with one arm draped across her hips intertwining their legs. Blushing because he was only in his, thankfully clean, boxers remembered what she told Juvia. There was one part of her statement that needed to be taken back; somethings did change. Their touches, accidental gropes or embarrassing incidents increased dramatically. Chemistry between them definitely shifted into something more intense the longer they went without delving deeper. Lucy sat up and pressed her lips to his cheek. After prepping for the day left a note for the deep sleeping man that she was going to the guild and would see him there. She dressed in short shorts, a v-cut blue stripped shirt, and her long hair partially up to the side with boots.

Once arrived at said guild, Erza practically bulldozed her to the floor just outside of the entrance way.

"Lucy, it's good to see you. I have the utmost important news."

The red head's smile started to creep her out because the re-quip mage had _a look_. "What news Erza?"

"I have tickets for us to go to a mixed bath. It's on the other side of the mountain where we left off on our quest." Placing a fist on her hips, with the other holding tickets an inch away from Lucy's face, proved how happy these made her.

"How long are we planning to stay here till we leave for the quest again?" Taking the tickets from Erza so she could read them normally, felt unease about this particular endeavor.

"We will stay for two more weeks, before leaving again." Crossing her arms over a plated chest, nodded rather factually. "Besides we can meet up with friends."

Lucy quirked a brow and smirked. "Jellal gave you these tickets didn't he, he's the one we're meeting there."

Her eyes widened pulling her face away, embarrassed at being caught."It's not what you think, there are interesting rumors about the bath house."

"Alright, it shouldn't be too terrible, an Onsen will be relaxing!"

Before Erza could respond, she had been interrupted by none other than a certain dragon mage.

"Lucy, you left early. I wanted to snuggle for a while." Completely oblivious to how that even sounded, drowsily scratched the back of his head.

The taller of the two females looked like her mind went into overdrive, "When did you two? Wait congratulations, when was the wedding" She shook Lucy's hand vigorously while babbling nonsensical words.

He bent down quite a bit to address Erza's inquiry, "Sleep together? We do it all the time, Lucy's bed is comfortable."

"Natsu…." Managing to pull out of Erza's iron grasp, gave the pink haired man a mean right hook, landing him to the pavement, "That's **_NOT_** what she meant!" then proceeded to stomp inside. "She was asking if we had **_SEX_** , you **_IDIOT_**!" Followed by a slam of the guild doors.

Happy was rolling on the ground laughing at the exchange.

Natsu rubbed his jaw admirably, cracked his neck and dawned a rather cunningly sharp grin. Still starring at the doors where Lucy boldly took her exit, draped his arm over a propped up knee while the other leg stretched in front, deciding he'd get back at her for this one later.

"Where we goin'?" He did catch the tail end of their conversation before he started to complain about Lucy leaving him that morning.

Erza took this chance to show Natsu the tickets. "It's on the other side of the same mountain we had that lead."

"What did Lucy say?" He was hoping for a longer stay, but the sooner they can finish the quest, the sooner they can pick up the next big job.

Beaming with joy put her hands on her hips. "She thinks it's a good idea."

"Hell yeah!" Natsu almost set the tickets on fire from sheer excitement, causing Erza to beat him till he was unconscious.

 _ **SsS**_

Twenty minutes later, it wasn't until Happy shoved a live fish from the river in his mouth, before he woke up gagging and spit the slimy thing out as it died from lack of oxygen. He knew his fuzzy friend would eat that later.

"Happy…" He held his head groggily "Where's Lucy?"

"She's talking with someone who keeps dropping by the guild, his name is Nero? Pero? Persquire? Pickle?"

"Bout what?" Sudden apprehension rose in his gut.

Happy looked at his blue paws dejectedly "He keeps asking her out on dates, he's a celestial mage and wants to talk about their keys together." Unsure if he should continue, looked at Natsu's very agitated expression.

"And?"

"Well, it sounded like she finally caved and said…" Happy sat down as he saw Natsu stand up, fire swirling around him.

"Said, what, Happy?" It was not a question anymore as more fire started to circle around his feet which lifted his long, now clean, tunic.

"She finally agreed, after years of saying no."

 _ **SsS**_

From inside the guild, all you could see from the windows was a sudden burst of fire going in either direction which set the surrounding shrubbery aflame.

This tore Lucy's attention away from Jax, a fellow celestial spirit mage who she's been keeping at arm's length in respect for Natsu. Jax was a man of excellent stature, very tall broad shoulders, with bright sapphire eyes, long messy jet black hair, narrow waist, intellect that could match Fried's and a voice that could smooth over any girl. He asked her out at least once a week, every week for a year before she left on their quest. Here again was Jax asking her out, after wind swept through Magnolia of the group's return. For a year she turned men down out of respect for her and Natsu's possibilities. Four years of waiting for what they could be, but never became.

"Really? You'll go?" He gazed at her through half lidded eyes that would make most woman swoon.

Lucy's expression betrayed her on some level.

"My darling if you really don't want too, I'll stop here and now."

Closing her eyes felt the bitterness, frustration and hurt swell over the reminder she waited for so long and looked at Jax without any hesitance. "I can't break a promise, once I say I'll do something, I'll do it."

"Excellent, I'll pick you up at 9 tonight, dress _nice_." Jax leaned over with elegance and pressed firm lips to the back of the hand dawning Lucy's guild mark.

Pulling her hand away nervously, had zero desire for Natsu to witness it and because the gesture made her uncomfortable.

Natsu watched the entire exchange as he leaned against the doorway. Once he saw Jax come his way, decided to block the exit. He was ready to burn this guy to ash.

"I don't recognize you. Been comin' round here for long?" He didn't even spare the poor bloke a glance, instead he looked ahead rather uninterested.

"Ah Salamander! I hear exquisite tales of your conquests all over Earthland, in fact I believe you are rated highest of most desirable male in "The Weekly Sorcerer" now, we should duel sometime."

The fire dragon practically laughed in his face, "Doubt you could last five minutes with me, _**Persquire**_."

"Jax, my name is Jax. I'll have you know I'm an exceptional celestial wizard. I want to duel Lucy sometime. Though I really would love to fight you."

Jax's stuffy attitude was driving him up a wall. "That would be my pleasure Snacks. What about... _**right now**_?" He grinned ear to ear in a very dangerous and feral way.

Lucy however caught that look, and knew immediately how quickly the situation could turn from bad to worse and intervened before Jax got himself killed.

"Jax! I see you met Natsu. Natsu you are blocking the poor man's way." She placed one hand on her hip, as she motioned to the door with her guild hand. "Please move so he can leave."

"No sweat Luce, can't wait for the duel Picks." He finally moved from his location to stand behind Lucy and waved at the man, only to grab her by the wrist and pull her off to the side out of everyone's view. He didn't see the glare that Jax shot him as they walked away.

 _ **SsS**_

Eventually Natsu came to the sick bay, discovering that it was empty, dragged her in there and locked the door. He put both of his arms over her head to block any escape and leaned into a hairs breath from her face. Lucy would have found this incredibly sexy, if it weren't for the reason as to **_why_** he had her pinned to the wall.

"Who, **_the hell_** , is **_that_**?" When Natsu was mad his eyes burned brighter, more passionately.

Being defiant, pushed one of his arms away, leaned against the wall more comfortably and steeled her gaze with just as much vigor, as though she were giving a child a scolding with an eyebrow raise. "Who do you **_think_** it was, Natsu?"

"Don't look at me like that Luce." Stepping back crossed his arms.

Lucy stepped forward and proceeded to poke his chest with each emphasized word " ** _You_** , brought me in here. **_You_** started to make demands, like you own me, when **_I_** had done **_nothing_** **_wrong_**. He asked me out on a date over and over again for a year after the war. I told him no, and now he came back three years later to ask me out. So I agreed."

That was the last thing he wanted to hear, in retaliation grabbed her shoulders forcing fierce brown eyes to look up at him, as he voiced his concerns. "What if he's a rapist, or drowns your apartment? You've got **_me_** and **_our_** Nakama. That's all you need."

Her voice was stern, however it wavered in uncertainty at the end of her sentence."Really? Taurus or Loki can handle him if he tried anything, but what if he drowns my apartment? Why do you care this much Natsu?"

Still holding on to her, dragon eyes looked away for a brief second unsure of how to answer properly. "I…" The question brought him an unsettling amount of trepidation. "He'll keep you from being able to perform jobs with us." He thought that was as good an answer as any.

Lucy became crestfallen, it sounded like he was finally going to confess, and he didn't. Stupid stubborn Natsu once again, failed to confirm he had any feelings for her. All these years of waiting, seemed wasted. Maybe all those incidents were just her wishful thinking. Water brimmed, finally giving up.

Questioning if her actions came from despair, that final spark of hope snuffed out, desire or a combination of the three; Lucy lifted her hand with the guild mark and gently brushed the side of his face with the back of her finger tips. She came in close, hesitated for a moment, then continued to place her lips to his with as much softness as kissing a petal.

Natsu's eyes widened from this new form of contact that made his heart stop for a second, causing a very red blush to creep from his ears to his cheeks. He had no idea how to respond, or what this officially meant. His reaction times in fights had been flawless, this was the first time in his life where he was too flabbergasted to react at all.

Unshed tears from earlier began to fall from his lack of response, looking away in anguish, soundlessly shoved the Dragon slayer to the ground, then bolted out after unlocking the door which she left wide open.

He watched her run out, then brought his own fingertips to touch his lips. He made Lucy cry, from what he wasn't sure. What he did know was in that one simple kiss, he wanted more. Now he knew was not entirely immune to the charms of females, he knew he felt something for Lucy, just never sure what. Now he understood a tiny bit what Gray and Laxus were talking about and it all stemmed from his first kiss.

Happy flew in which distracted Natsu from his troubled thoughts.

"Why are you on the floor?" Happy saw Lucy running away with her arm over her eyes. Looking at Natsu, then the door, then back at Natsu, dawned with realization as a blush formed on blue fuzzy cheeks. He covered his mouth to stifle a laugh then bee lined towards the exit so he could tattle on him to Erza. However his tail was snagged in the last second.

Pink hair hung his head low while still holding on to Happy's tail as gears began to turn. After a few moments, much to the Exceed's relief, let go of his tail and smacked his right fist into his left palm as fire went ablaze. "Happy, we're crashing Lucy's date!"

Happy looked absolutely thrilled to hear the idea. He didn't need any explanation for the sudden outburst or his father's weird disposition. Any time to mess with Lucy, was a good time indeed, "Aye, sir!" and fist bumped Natsu who had an equally mischievous grin.


	5. Chapter 5-A Date

A/N: "Gears are turning in the fire dragon slayer's head, is that ever a good thing? From what we know of Natsu, no…no it's not." Has gone back to her matcha, and prepares five cups for her new followers. "You guys made my day: Glass Dragon's Rose, MThereze, Nova1487, lopezxitalic29 and msfemjem you all are awesome. Also I think my war with the chapter bar...I feel...I lost." Begrudgingly sips tea.

MTherez- Love you are my very first favorite and follow. I was so happy about it, I ended up telling my third key who had absolutely no idea what I was talking about.

Disclaimer: I do not own Fairy Tail

* * *

Chapter 5- A Date

Lucy dressed in a fairly saucy way, her hair was nicely done in a high ponytail while her bangs framed her face. She wore a strapless pink cocktail dress with a sweetheart line that fit in all the right places, adorned with silk red embroidery, almost like fire wrapped around her waist as the dress ended at mid-thigh. Her three inch high heels were a deep crimson red lacing up the calf. She grabbed her black very long sleeve coat that went almost to her ankles, zipped it up and tied its sash around her slender waist.

After one last make-up check in the mirror, to be sure her lip gloss hadn't smeared, deemed herself ready. "I look like a Yakuza wife, almost a shame Natsu couldn't see this one, since I picked fire as my theme."

 _ **SsS**_

Fire glowed from the palm of his hand as it revealed Natsu's dragon like eyes keenly watching her leave with Jax on his motorcycle. In a deep and steady voice called for Happy to fly them close enough, but not so much they'd be spotted, he stood from his crouch for the Exceed to lift him as the fire vanished.

 _ **SsS**_

Lucy and Jax finally got to the bar as he continuously whispered sweet nothings in her ears, however she couldn't bring herself to remove her coat since her mind kept going back to the moment with Natsu in the sick bay. Natsu not once kissed her. It was her fault in part since Asuka demanded he kiss her once when babysitting and she used Happy as a shield in a last ditch moment since he was going too, and he has groped her more than she could count, as well as hold her close a few times… Now thinking more on the subject, it seemed that he did at least **_like_** her. So why hadn't he made a move. One thing she knew about Natsu, he never withheld from something he wanted. That grim thought made her feel more rejected. When she got Aquarius back, the mermaid berated and boxed her ears off for never dating, let alone kiss a guy. Though that was taken care of today.

Which brought her here to "Water Vibe" with Jax. The more she was with him, the bigger the guilt settled within, leading to a small case of anxiety. "Ahh maybe a drink would be good?"

Jax, more than delighted with the suggestion, perked up his gorgeous head and left her at the booth they settled into.

 _ **SSS**_

Off in the corner, leaning behind a blue tiled pillar, was pink hair with a black open short sleeveless vest, over a quarter sleeved red silk collared shirt that was unbuttoned to his chest for flare. Natsu left it partially untucked, revealing his old metal belt with a fire emblem in its center around his waist. Tilting his sunglasses downward as he eyed Lucy all dolled up, instantly could tell the unsettled atmosphere she was producing, then looked towards Happy as he began to pull on his black pants leg over dress boots.

"What're you gunna do Natsu?" The music was loud, and rainbow strobe lights drowned out their presence, however the man in question gave Happy a very sharp grin which accentuated his canines.

"We're going to light up this joint with a little fire." Flame began to escape from his mouth, as portions of where he stood began to melt.

"WHA?!" He flailed, "You can't! Lucy won't forgive you!" Nervous about the fire mage's antics flew up so he could speak face to face. "Can we crash it another way?"

"Relax Happy, just watch." With that, he disappeared into the crowd leaving Happy to fly up to the next balcony, so he could watch his father figure encroach on his prey as though it were another enemy.

 _ **SsS**_

Lucy continued to wait for Jax, heat from all the bodies started to get to her and for some weird reason, still didn't want to remove her coat despite the unnatural increase in temperature. She placed rested her chin to her palm with her elbow on the table and groaned to herself. "Uggghhh... this heat. I think I'm going to die..."

 _ **SsS**_

Natsu found Jax flirting, in his point of view, with another girl close to the exit of the club away from everyone. "Ahh, so this is how it is?", cracking his knuckles, smiled with pleasure, as he slammed Jax out cold with a fist, then tied him up and tossed him outside. The poor woman who happened to witness the scene screamed while running. Fortunately the exchange went down without much thought from anyone, since events like that happened nightly. He then took a deep gulp of air to channel such excretion of hot air, it stalled the A.C. and melted the vents.

 ** _SsS_**

Happy looked on from his perch on balcony to the second level to the club through bars, as electronics started to glitch while club goers began to sweat so bad, they had to leave or suffer dehydration.

"Hehehe" if anyone paid attention, they would see a blue Exceed laughing rather evilly.

 _ **SsS**_

"Why does this feel... so damned familiar…" Her coat was now melted off her body and her dress began to liquefy in tatters, when realization dawned. "I'm going to kill him." Lucy continued her struggle to stay as modest as possible.

 _ **SsS**_

The D.J. who was still playing music in all this commotion, had his equipment catch on fire from overheating. Natsu then proudly strolled up and sucked it away. "Thanks for the meal." Wiping his forearm to his mouth watched as the D.J. run in fear.

 _ **SsS**_

Lucy at this point had most of her dress melted away, save for it covering important areas, witnessed Natsu eating fire from the D.J. equipment. Her knees went weak as he strode over, her heartbeat quickened with palpation as he approached. Silently he grabbed her hand to pull her out the door with a firm, yet gentle yank. She had no time to ogle at how devilish Natsu looked as her temper sored. Once they were out she gave the fire mage a piece of her mind.

"What, did you do, with Jax?" Hands on her hips, leaned in which gave Natsu a very solid view of how well that dress used to fit her and how much of it melted off. He gave Lucy his vest to cover with. To him she looked like fire itself, and he wanted to know what _that_ fire tasted like. Though he didn't show it.

"I did you a favor, found him flirting with other girls. It's an invitation for a beating." Crossing his arms behind his head, stubbornly made his case against blonde hair, brown eyes and curves he still could not ignore.

A sharp clipped tone was all that was needed."So you had to turn the club into a roasting pit?"

"If I hadn't, you would've still been waiting for that girly man. He smelled like a thousand different parfumes Ichiya made."

Calm deep breaths needed to be taken as she heard him out. "What, are you even doing here, in the first place?"

At that Natsu beamed with an incredibly boyish grin, "Thought it would be fun."

It took all Lucy had not to sock him with that one comment, instead gave him a verbal reprimand enough to make his ears bleed, "My date **_is ruined_** , you **_melted_** the club with my favorite coat and dress! You **_never_** think things through ** _…_** "

" I'm not sorry I ruined your date. He was _bad news_ Lucy." They were nose to nose arguing. They argued before, however not quite like this. The closer he got to her, the more he wanted to _devour_ her. The feeling startled him, so he backed off first stuffing his hands in his pocket.

Her palm repetitively smacked lightly against her forehead, till with a final calming inhale and exhale sadly smiled at him. "I guess, I owe you one. I wasn't having fun anyway."

"Why did you agree? Making me bail your ass out n all. I could tell from the start you didn't want to go with him." The duo walked back to her apartment as he stated in a matter of fact way.

"At least you didn't literally set the place on fire, or blow it up." Just as she said it, the entire building went up in flames.

Natsu and Lucy looked on awestruck, though he was first to respond by picking her up bridal style and ran.

Happy had followed them out once he saw Natsu achieve his goal, he watched during the argument a little worried about the two of them. But after he saw the club explode yelled at the offender. "We're in trouble now! I told you not to go overboard!"

"Ah shut it Happy!" Still holding Lucy, saw she clung onto him while he was running.

"Will you put me down! I have legs!"

"Ha says the girl who is holding me tighter..."

"Put me down!"

He sighed "Fine." He dropped her and then all three booked it to her place as officials came in through the background.


	6. Chapter 6-The Onsen

A/N: "Jellal is a pain to write with all his nuances, and broken magic reserves. (Broken as in over powered). I had to make sure I used all of his stuff in a way that made sense to him as a character. I hope he doesn't feel too OOC. Frackin Jellal, pain in my ceremonial ass." She slams her chawan down aggressively.

Disclaimer- Own Fairy Tail I do not, write about them, I must.

* * *

Chapter 6- The Onsen

Two weeks passed after Natsu and Lucy received a scolding from Markarov. They were banned from all clubs in Magnolia for a solid period of a year. The incident reached to other locations quickly, thanks to " _The Weekly Sorcerer_ " headline, above a picture of the melted building:

Natsu and Lucy caught "Water Vibe" on fire with zero casualties!

COOOOL!- Jason

Now even if they wanted too, would never be allowed near another club _outside_ Magnolia, in addition to the year ban _within_ their own city.

 _ **SsS**_

Preparing to leave had been a daunting task. Erza purchased another wagon made of steel instead of wood as an upgrade. Natsu, Lucy and Happy did missions without rest to help with travel funds. Between the three of them, they collected enough to pay for two months of rent at Fairy Hills, making it 20,000,000 jewels. Gray spent most of his time with Juvia, she was still too clingy for him. However the long absence helped him further come to terms with their new relationship and was surprised that his water mage hadn't made an attempt to bring him home. Juvia had been distraught since he was leaving so soon after he came back, but understood that this was a Job, Gray promised that he would come back for her. That gave Juvia all the hope she needed. As for Wendy and Charle, they went to Porlyusica for further training in healing magic that produced excellent results.

Everyone gave their well wishes with tears and hugs, as a gift provided team Natsu with the latest edition of a lacrima phone to stay in touch. Erza already owned one, so she gave it to Fairy Tail's smaller sweetheart, who thanked them kindly.

 ** _SsS_**

A train whistled through the station, signifying its arrival. Once on board Natsu instantly keeled over along with Wendy after placing themselves in their respective seats, as the train began to move.

"Lucy, it's like the night of Fire Whisky all over again…." He hurled over, losing his balance off his perch, and somehow vomited on Gray.

"Aaaawwww god, **_why_**? Fire prick, can't you go die somewhere **_else_**?" Gray stripped his white coat and vest making him half naked. At least this time he had a good reason.

"Uggghhh, make it stop." Wendy whimpered trying her best to hold it back as much as possible against the window seat next to Lucy. Unfortunately the curse of a Dragon Slayer is the stronger their magic, the more motion sickness affects the user. Charle gave her a liquid to drink that caused severe drowsiness, lulling her to sleep for the duration. There was enough for one dose.

"Charle, be a pal." Now on the floor reached out to the Exceed who was still in her original form.

"Absolutely not, there was only one to start with and I'm not wasting it. You should know better, I feel both you and Wendy should learn to control this somehow. I forgive Wendy, but you are shameful to look at." Charle finished her speech while floating above Natsu's head.

The fire mage went green with protest till he felt a foot connect with his head knocking him out.

"That was for throwing up on me earlier." Gray sat back rightfully annoyed.

"Gray got familiar with Natsu's stomach."

Gray roughly pulled Happy by the tail and proceeded to pinch his cheeks painfully to make the blue cat's mouth open in a torturous manner.

"M fowwy gweh!"

Lucy and Erza rubbed their temples in unison and looked at each other from across their seats in silent understanding. Erza pulled Gray smack into her breast plate which caused him to lose consciousness. Lucy reached over to snag onto Happy and held him tightly, even if the Exceed squirmed to be free. Both women smiled. Wendy's head rested gently on Lucy's lap as Charle curled up with her, Gray was in Erza's lap with a lump on his head. Natsu (who was still on the train floor) was out cold, making it for a very peaceful trip before the next train stop.

 _ **SsS**_

They discovered the mountain had been called Naitosutōkā (Night stalker) Mountain. The onsen had been lovingly named Yomi Yokai Ramen (Underworld Demon Noodles). All seven members appeared as though they tasted something very disgusting.

"Erza, I don't like this." Lucy stood behind Natsu since the sign's condition and ominous wording was little to be desired. It read:

Welcome to Yomi Yokai Ramen of Naitosutoka Mountain!

Please come join us till you can't move a muscle.

"Nonsense, if Jellal said this place has a good reputation I believe him. We should move onward, the hot springs will be a delight on the skin. All seven of us can bathe together."

Lucy caught up with her in an almost jog. "Are you sure **_this_** is the place Jellal said to go too? It's well…"

"We should give it a chance. Remember, we're all together. As long as we stay that way, we can beat anything." She pat Lucy's head in a comforting way, making any arguments null and void.

"Erza, do we have to have a bath with the guys? Can't we be separate?" Even though Wendy had gotten used to incidents where they were all exposed to each other, she didn't want to make a situation where it was intentional.

Charle walked in her human form next to Erza, Wendy and Lucy, with Natsu and Gray bringing up the rear. "I agree with Wendy she's still a young girl. It would be inappropriate for men to see her without clothes. I simply must request the girls be separate, there is no need for them to join us."

"Even now I don't like Natsu seeing me." She pointed a thumb backwards towards the guys. "I think I'll separate and bathe with Charle and Wendy."

Natsu casually walked next to them, joining in on their debate with arms behind his head, then his hips as spoke to her in passing. "Aw come on Luce it'll be fun, it's not like I haven't seen it all before." He made his voice low enough for only the girl in question to catch "I can even scrub your back for you." He knew he was flirting, he picked up a thing or two from Guildarts and Loki.

For whatever reason, Lucy was tempted which elicited her cheeks to go red and not unnoticed by the one who made the suggestion. "L..like hell."

The dragon's response was a snicker since she was so easy and fun to tease.

"I say we just get there, and figure it out. All this bickering is giving me a headache." Coming in from behind watched for everyone's flank, since they seemed a bit too relaxed for his liking.

"Funny since it's coming from you." Happy flew on his back like he was floating on water in the middle of a vacation.

"Damn it, didn't I give you enough punishment on the train? Fucking fur-ball." Gray lit a cigarette. He had stopped smoking way back when, but constantly being with this crew got him started up again, Wendy was the only one who didn't stress him out.

Erza stopped her trek suddenly and pulled the freshly lit stick out of his mouth tossing it to the wayside. "You know better, do I have to go through the same methods to get you to quit like the last time?"

Gray visibly flinched, the reason why he quit soon after Lucy joined, was because this woman locked him in a room and force fed him repugnant smelling foods for three days to get the toxins out of his system. After that ordeal, he swore to never touch them again. "See Erza not smoking, definitely clean!" Plastering on a stressed smile, dumped the entire box out for emphasis.

"That's what I like to hear."

 ** _SsS_**

The Onsen had been surprisingly well kept. Three painted red wood story walls with gold pillars added to the charm of the old stone bridge they crossed. You could hear the mountain falls behind it, creating a low mist surrounding the area. Since it was twilight, an orange glow touched the surface of every object in its path, creating a spiritual sense of cleanliness, ironic due to the welcome board.

A man in a plain forest green yukata, cinched at the hips, casually stepped down from the crimson double door entrance way embroidered with a Shinigami (Japanese death god) ink painting down the center; where two circular bronze handles met. "Greetings, greetings my young friends. You wouldn't happen to be Erza would you?" His overly thick voice, caused slight unrest.

"Yes I am."

"Delightful. Jellal already told me you were coming, he should be here soon. I happen to be an…old acquaintance if you will. My name is Annek Warlin. Please come in and get settled. From my understanding it will be a long time before you can rest, hm?"

Natsu didn't like this man already, Annek had a scent that was absolutely horrid, and it took all of the dragon slayer's self-control not to gag. Stepping close to Lucy, held her hand and pushed through their team to get passed Warlin as quickly as possible.

"Natsu?" He heard his name from her, but stared ahead with an unreadable expression.

Erza watched with a raised eyebrow at his weird behavior as he pulled both him and Lucy inside."Yes… thank you that would be much appreciated. I take it we are all in one room?"

Annek's mouth twitched upward, "I hope that would be alright with you?"

"Yes that will be fine, we prefer it that way." Erza bowed politely then followed after Lucy and Natsu, everyone else was strangely quiet as well.

 _ **SsS**_

"Natsu, is this a new habit? What is your problem let me g-" Natsu embraced her, then stuck his nose in between the crook of her neck inhaling her sweet smelling scent of Jasmine, honey and just a touch of smoke from his own. A devilish smile secretly came across handsome features, knowing he would keep that discovery to himself.

Lucy went stiff as a board, "N-Natsu what are y-" He interrupted her again as the corners of his mouth trailed up from her neck to her cheeks and jawline as his hand grasped the back of her head to keep her from moving.

Strangely fighting different kinds of temptations continued, "Just, let me. That guy smelled like seven day old garbage, filled with rotten meat and fish." A few seconds more passed till he was satisfied. "And gone. If I ever have to smell someone that disgusting again, I think I'll just burn the man out of his misery." Natsu let Lucy go as they waited for the others to catch up.

"Why me though."

He leaned against the wall opposite of the door, crossed his arms and legs only to look at her sternly. "After all this time, do I really have to explain it Luce?"

Pink dusted her cheeks, "You told me once it calmed you."

"Yeah."

Their friends finally showed up and trailing behind them was Annek, Natsu frowned seeing Wendy's own discomfort at the man. "Here Wendy," Shoving Lucy directly in front of her made his case clear, whispering so only Wendy could make out his words."Lucy's scent will help, so stick to her till we're out of smelling range." He controlled his breathing in a way where Annek didn't get to him nearly as bad.

"Sorry about this Lucy," The sky dragon took Lucy by the arm and kept close to her, almost like a chiclet to her mother.

"No worries, I understand." Natsu, Lucy and Wendy stayed in front of everyone in the narrow halls, the weather went from beautiful sunset to gray, rainy and melancholy. The old sliding paper doors had gruesome pictures of Demons fighting man, dragons and each other.

"I guess they like to stick with a theme…" Gray wasn't really speaking to anyone in particular, but it was Annek who answered while carrying an old fashioned lantern that came from the East.

"Ah yes, my family had a strange sense of design. If you don't mind, let me get passed you and I can show you the rest of the way." He had to push through them because the halls were more meant for a single file line, than bunched up like they were. "Ah, here we are."

The sliding door creaked, revealing the Onsen's true age making Lucy and Wendy shiver. "Make yourselves at home." With that he left down the very deep hallway leaving them in now pitch darkness. For whatever reason the architects who built it, didn't believe in windows.

As if on que Natsu had a flame going in the palm of his hand for all of them to see, as they piled into the room. Lucy and Wendy stuck to his side like glue. Erza found their own room's lantern, as the rain pitter pattered against red oak that was centuries old. You could hear every bang, scratch and thump made by either guests, not that they saw any, or natural settling. She brought it over for Natsu to light it, Gray was inspecting each wall by tapping on them, feeling something was off. Wendy and Lucy huddled in a corner frightened out of their wits.

The stellar spirit mage's voice fluctuated from fear and nervousness. "I'm never taking tickets Jellal has given you, again."

"Spooky…" Wendy was happy to cling to the celestial wizard because Natsu had been right, Lucy's sent was very calming.

"I'm with them, this place isn't right. How did Jellal give you those tickets?"

"He handed them to me in person, what to do you mean how?" At that there was a knock on their door's frame since Annek closed it behind him.

Natsu knew immediately who it was, even though his back was to the entrance. "Ask him yourself." His thumb pointed to said sliding screen door.

"I'm sorry I'm late, I was supposed to meet you here, but as usual Erza your timing has always been better than mine. Now let me explain about this Onsen." Jellal brushed off the water from his long coat. "We should have a seat." Erza brought the lantern in the middle as everyone sat around in a circle, anxious to hear what would be said. "First off, this old building doubles as a haunted house during the fall and winter months." He walked over to where the back wall met the side wall, tapped on the center panel and a fake ghost woman covered in blood popped out, scaring the daylights out of Lucy, Wendy and Charle. "So there's a lot of trap doors, secret entrances, pathways the list goes on." He shoved the weird thing back into the compartment. "It's said that this place really is haunted, but there's been no confirmation on it. Second of all, the owner recently opened it for the public a year ago when it used to be so closed off. It's really a big mystery why he suddenly put this place on the map, and how it got well known so quickly."

"So you wanted us to investigate?" Gray casually put his weight on his right arm while leaning back, fully clothed.

"That's only part of it, the story is Annek's family had a secret. There was a rumor that this place had a basement guarding sacred treasure protected by their gods."

Lucy excitedly snapped her fingers and pointed, "I get it! That secret treasure could be the egg we've been searching for."

Jellal grinned, "Correct."

"You sly devil, just tell us next time without all the smoke and mirrors." Slapping him on the back almost knocked the wind out of him and proceeded to wrap his arm around his shoulders bending both of them down. "Erza, you should keep this one. I think he fits in." Erza and Jellal went red in their cheeks. Natsu had let him go so he could set up his sleeping bag in a far corner.

"Are you in the same room with us?" Blue hair swished about as she walked over and looked way up at him while carrying Charle.

"No, my room is right across from yours. Though, Erza would you join me for a moment while we go over the specifics?" At this point he had turned away from the door so his body faced forward, but his head tilted slightly back over his shoulder so he could be heard.

"Yes of course be right there."Standing proceeded to follow him out. However Natsu and Gray started to snicker in the background.

" _Battle plans_ , that's a lame excuse." Unfortunately it was Gray who spoke first. Erza turned on him and hit him where it hurt most, then Natsu's head since he was laughing too.

"Oooowwww, But I didn't say anything." He watched Erza walk out and slam the door. Lucy, Happy, Wendy and Charle just palmed their foreheads with a resounding smack.

Happy lazily floated around. "You two are idiots, good thing I'm the only mature one around here."

Groaning and holding his manhood, reprimanded the exceed for the second time that day, "Fuck off cat."

The day was long, and they knew the night would be longer as they waited for Erza's return, but fell asleep waiting.

 _ **SsS**_

Lucy woke up only to find that Erza never came back, however Wendy was wide awake with a very flustered expression. "What's wrong?"

"Erza is fine, I swear!"

Lucy blinked a few times. "I didn't ask anything about Erza."

"Well I've been **_hearing_** things. Sorry if I was jumpy." She clutched Charle as the Exceed attempted to comfort her.

"Oh. OH, **_oohh_**... You and that dragon hearing of yours is sometimes not wanted huh…" Lucy truly felt for the girl.

Wendy only nodded grimly. "I can't help it. It's the same with different scents too, like Erza and Gray weren't bothered by , but Natsu and I couldn't stand his smell. I can also pick up the scent of **_other_** things," pointing to their door solemnly added "I don't want too but I do. I know Natsu can hear and smell them too. I'm wouldn't be surprised if he was awake putting up with it also."

"What Erza does, is her business." Said man waved facing away, while his head rested from within his sleeping bag. "Just ignore them Wendy and go to sleep. It's the best we can do." Propping his head up to look at her from behind him, " ** _IF_** it makes you feel any better, Erza's still a virgin." Natsu tapped his nose with his index and winked at her, "Never underestimate a dragon's nose." Wendy and Lucy went red at his comment.

"Don't go saying things like that!" Lucy tossed a pillow for emphasis, to which it bounced off his head as he laid there ignoring it. Happy and Gray continued to slumber like the dead as everyone else drifted back to sleep.

 ** _SsS_**

 _Thunk, thump, scratch, thunk thump scratch, scraaatccchhhhhh, bang, bang, bang_ against the hidden compartment and it became louder and louder as it made an inhuman groan in Lucy's ears. It's shadowy figure loomed overhead, reaching for Lucy's foot and tugged her across the room to where the ghost doll had been hidden in the wall. Her breathing became harder, as a cold sweat went up her spine unable to move since she could feel something there, but the room was pitch black as though it were an underground tunnel. A sound like a fingernail next to the wall slowly dragged down against the hard wood behind the same wall. Lucy couldn't breathe, nor could she call for help completely paralyzed. Lucy felt a cold hand with long fingers grab her head and pull her into the hidden compartment.

 _ **SsS**_

"Lucy… Lucy! Wake up, Lucy!" Natsu shook her awake hearing her scream in her sleep. He had not once seen her have a nightmare like this. It didn't help that she was also burning with fever. He skillfully spit fire towards the lantern's candle wick, brightening up the room. To him it felt like it was around three in the morning. "Gray… Hey Gray! Wake your sorry ass up."

"What, do you **want**?" His gruff voice was thick with tired aggravation.

"I can't wake her up and she's having a fever, we need to cool her down."

"Wait, what's going on?"

"Lucy won't wake up, and she has a high temperature." Natsu held Lucy's head as she just shook her head no delirious. What unnerved him the most, was she kept pointing to the wall where that creepy doll had been.

Gray crawled over from his corner and touched Lucy's head, realizing her temperature was at a dangerous degree. Pulling Lucy close encircled her in a calm wind of ice.

For some reason that scene bothered Natsu more than he suspected it would as he pushed Wendy awake. "Wendy... Wendy wake up... something's going on."

Wendy woke up to see how ill Lucy was and attempted to heal her as she pulled Heartfilia away from Gray. "Something is interfering with my healing!"

Natsu kneeled next to Lucy, while Wendy worked her magic, almost afraid to touch her. His gut told him to check out the compartment, however he didn't want to Leave Lucy's side. "Gray, open the trap-door."

"Cool down Lucy, open the compartment. Anything else step mother?"

"Just do it Gray." Natsu wasn't in the mood for games, he needed Lucy fixed now and to find out what was causing all this mess.

"Alright, alright I get it." Gray used his knuckle to tap the trap door, and to his surprise the doll wasn't there, but a large opening that lead downward instead. "What the fu…." Lucy interrupted him.

" _The girl is a celestial mage, yes_?" Her eyes instead of soft brown were simply black irises. Whomever was speaking, wasn't their Lucy. " _I shall lead you where you need to go._ " Lucy rose like she had been dead for over a hundred years and swayed back and forth. Then suddenly appeared before Natsu and Gray again, except her face wasn't the face of Lucy but an overcast of a woman in a ceremonial death kimono.

"What did you do to Lucy." Natsu fisted her collar and shook furiously.

" _Fear not dragon child, the girl is alive, barely. However I need you to follow me. Hurry or she won't last much longer._ " Then pointed to the very dark depressing doorway.

"Natsu wait, something isn't right!" Wendy casted milky-way hastily at the first sight of Lucy's odd behavior, only to find out that the girl possessing Lucy was not what she seemed. There were two different presences within the blonde woman.

Happy and Charle were already awake and witnessed Wendy interrogate the spirit. Their eyes bulged while clinging to each other.

"Lucy is scarier than ever!" Happy stayed in the corner both of them stricken with terror.

"Who are you, vile demon." Wendy bravely challenged the spirit to answer. Lucy's mouth opened up to a very wide maw elongating the jaw more than humanly possible, cackled and flew down into the opening that looked like it was a shrine gate.

"Lucy! Wendy get Erza **_now_**." It was not a request.

Desperation was evident."But what will you do Natsu?"

"I'm going after her, I'm not letting it take Lucy!"

Wendy ran across the hall, now feeling every waking spirit in this wretched Onsen, and repetitively banged on Jellal's room. "Something got to Lucy and it dragged her body down below under the Onsen. Natsu went to go after her but it's got a really bad vibe."

Erza and Jellal instantly opened the door, "Show me." Erza felt tension in her heart.

Wendy entered the room but everything looked normal, Gray was attacking at what seemed to be a solid wall."Gray what are you doing?!" Erza stopped him in his tracks.

"It, just disappeared, it swallowed them!" The dim low light flickered as the temperature dropped.

"Here let me." Jellal casted a barrier breaking spell and discovered what kept the entrance closed. "This is old and ancient magic. Someone was trying to keep something in."

"Can you undo it?" Erza already knew the answer.

"Is it a question?" A confident smile adorned his face, making Erza feel warm within. Jellal casted a spell that makes any sealing spell obsolete, it glowed green with ancient and archaic symbols forcing the red gate to appear. "We need to enter now, I can't keep it open for long."

Wendy, Gray, Erza, Jellal, Happy and Charle entered before the wall closed off as if it was never there in the first place.


	7. Chapter 7-The Onsen Part II

A/N: I have decided that the chapter bar...won… it beat me... I would rather my nonsensical notes run into it, over the story. Also fanfiction has decided to pull a new thing, by grouping ALL OF MY WRITING into ONE GIANT PARAGRAPH. So if I post something and it's ONE GIANT PARAGRAPH, then know I've already discovered it and in process of fixing it. I edit this story and monitor TLDE constantly. Also I didn't realize that my fixed version of chapter 6 wasn't posted. I did fail on that part. It's now been posted and legible. *rubs temple*

A/N: SHOUT OUT TO MY NEW FOLLOWERS AND FAVORITES! You guys rock and put the biggest smile on my face. Such positive reviews!

If you were able to read chapter 6 (God bless all of you if you managed to read the giant paragraph of disaster) then this is for you guys ;)

Please read and review, I love opinions and constructive criticism.

Disclaimer- I still don't own fairy tail

* * *

Chapter 7-The Onsen Part II

Absolute darkness is what they first saw, like they were walking into an unexplored cave without a lantern. They found Natsu almost immediately. Natsu's fire, and Jellal's magic was their only source of light. The stairway became narrower than the last as smooth stone became gravel under each step. It was so old, certain parts were missing, one wrong move and they could fall into the abyss. Team Natsu couldn't tell how far down it went and there was nothing on either side of them. Almost like a stairway into a giant empty cavern with no walls.

"The air feels rotten, like it's been poisoned for a very long time."

Charle inquired while flying next to her blue friend "Is there anything else you can tell?"

Wendy took her index finger, pointed it upward into the air and placed it in her mouth as though she were sampling a sweet. "Not much, however there is residual magic mixed in. Something really bad happened in this place. It smells like a curse and tastes…" gulp "like death…"

Nobody could say a word after Wendy's analyzation.

It was a good while before Happy broke their silence. "I hope Lucy is okay."

"We'll get her back Happy, don't worry. Lucy is Lucy, if anything we beat the ghost out. I won't let it have her."

"Fist first is not always the answer. It's going to take delicate work to separate Lucy from this spirit."

"Jellal, you're lucky I stopped. It's taken everything I got not to leave you all behind." As if it could get any darker, the fairly tall pink haired man increased his flames.

"Wow it always surprises me when Natsu thinks ahead. It almost never happens."

"Happy if you give him too much credit, his ego will take over all of Earthland."

"Ah get off it, ice queen."

"OI! I only spoke the truth, go eat ghost shit." Gray and Natsu were now butting heads till Erza managed to step in between them despite the narrow path.

"ENOUGH! Your bickering won't get us to Lucy any faster, please behave for longer than five minutes… _ **O** **r else**_ …"

They wrapped an arm around each other and happily went downstairs as though an argument never occurred in the first place.

"I will always admire how you can control those two." Charle flew in close to Erza's shoulder. "If only they behaved like this all the time. Lately it doesn't seem even your presence is enough to keep them from constantly arguing."

Gray and Natsu carelessly slipped on moss in the midst of their "bonding" and fell down the stairs. You could hear their cries in unison as they held onto each other tightly, along with a thud as they hit solid earth. From within the pitch darkness you could hear their bickering. Jellal now had to pull double the weight as a light source. A pulse formed on his forehead, "I'm going to kill those two, if Erza doesn't get there first."

 _ **SsS**_

"Oooowww…this is _**your fault**_ , flame eating dick face."

" _ **My fault**_? Hell no, this is clearly **_your fault_**. I bet you left your brains with Juvia, along with your balls."

"You burnt yours a long time ago. How are ya going to please Lucy if you're a crispy fried dragon sack."

The pass about Lucy went right over his head. "I bet you're so cold, yours shrank three sizes in, and now you have a vagina."

 _ **SsS**_

"Erza, where do they get these insults from?" Wendy was watching her step thanks to having a type of night vision from her dragon sight and Jellal's aid.

"I don't think we want to know." Charle flew closer to Jellal, content with him being there.

Erza smiled assuredly trying to convince their youngest and herself. "Fear not, they are good friends it's normal to have some bickering."

Wendy was still uncertain.

Erza was still uncertain. Cupping a hand around her mouth shouted, "Gray, Natsu! We'll be right there, stay _**put**_."

It was Gray's disembodied voice that responded reaching the ears of the others. "Now look, Erza says we have to stay here, in the dark, together till they get here. I don't want to wait with you."

"I couldn't have said it better myself, Jack-off." In the dark they turned away from each other fuming. Natsu stood and lit his flame so their friends could spot them. However what he found made his hair stand on end.

Ancient pictures told about sacrifices to a hell god in the shape of a dragon made of black fire. Each sacrifice was eaten and the remains smeared over the altar to protect them and their village from any outside evil. One female from the head family was picked as the "fire's bride" the physical traits were oddly specific. Each had curves that were unusual for the family line, eyes that were as soft a brown as grave dirt, or blue as the deep sea, hair that was long and shimmered like the sun touched a white daisy with its golden rays, also unusual for a family with constant black hair. In the middle section, it told that their "fire deity" suddenly vanished two hundred years ago.

However this didn't stop the sacrifices, to keep the village from finding out their deity was no more, they continued the sacrifices. One girl born with these characteristics from each generation, had been taken down to a raised platform made of ivory. There they bound and chopped into pieces to keep up the pretense that they were being "eaten." Eventually the family was plagued by a vengeful spirit's curse: It swore that if they didn't keep up the pretense, every family member would die. So out of fear they kept up the sacrifices to appease this evil spirit. The surrounding village didn't know any better so they proudly offered up each girl from the head family that was supposed to be "the fire bride".

Natsu was never good at discerning ancient lore. However pictures he knew, and the last sacrifice looked a lot like Lucy from 200 years ago. It's said it was her who became a vengeful spirit that plagued the family. Somewhere along the way it said they stopped the sacrifices 80 years ago and recently the family all died save for one male, Annek Warlin.

"Gray? Come here."

"What? I don't want to do deal with you."

"Gray." At hearing the deadpan seriousness in his tone stopped and went to see why the dragon called him over. Then froze at the last line where Natsu paused.

Jellal, Erza, Wendy, Charle and Happy finally found solid earth and met up with them.

Deep eyes noticed the high alert her headaches were on. "What's wrong?" Erza stopped, her eyes widened and the corners of her mouth went into an immediate frown.

Wendy followed their line of sight to where the other three were looking. All seven couldn't move as they each got a view of the lore.

Charle's voice warbled anxiously, unsure if she wanted to hear an answer."Did… you see a village anywhere around here?"

"One of the reasons why I was late getting here is because I saw a small civilization behind the Onsen. You would easily miss it, except for a path that gives you a small insight to its location. This bathhouse looked like it was the entrance. The village is surrounded by a wall almost like a hidden city. When I investigated it, I found most of the houses were abandoned, save for a few denizens that refused to leave. I tried talking to them, but all I got was a door slammed in my face. That was my first clue something weird was going on. They didn't like that their town was turned into an attraction during fall and winter months, at least that's the vibe I picked up. Other than that they were extraordinarily guarded." Jellal placed a hand on the pictures to feel the ancient preservation magic coming from them.

Erza placed a hand on Jellal's shoulder. "How did you get into the village if the Onsen was the only way to get inside? Annek also said he knew you before."

He smirked mirthlessly, "I managed to leap over the wall. There was no barrier magic to keep me out, not like one could anyway." He continued with a frown, "If this is true, then Lucy is in much more danger than we thought…wait Annek said he knew me? I've never interacted with him other than the one instance for these tickets."

The last line revealed the ancient spirit possessing a girl that was similar to herself and becoming the sacrifice that the last remnant of the family had to carry out, setting the original free. Lucy would take its place in guarding the family as the evil spirit.

Natsu already ran further down the tunnel. "Hurry up, or I'm leaving y'all behind!"

 _ **SsS**_

Natsu came upon a putrid smelling shrine, surrounded by bones. This is where they discarded the innocent women. Lucy's body arose and floated above the remains, then a voice came from her throat sounding like herself and two mysterious beings at once.

" _Dragon, I am tired. I want to rest let me have this girl so she can take my place. Annek knows, he's on his way._ " Lucy fought for control. "No, Natsu you mustn't let me get to the altar. It's what _**he**_ wants." It looked like Lucy's body had been thrown backwards into the bones, after her breakthrough. The vile spirit in control grinned.

"What if we can help you?" Natsu tried to figure out what this thing's angle was.

" _Can you? Take me to the altar, stab the heart of this woman and all will be right again. If you do, then I shall let the girl go..._ " Lucy was practically fused with the spirit since her ceremonial death kimono was tangible and solid. The spirit dropped Lucy's body like a rag doll to which Natsu caught.

"Hang on, we'll get you fixed." He nuzzled her hair, but cringed at her scent. Lucy smelled like death from 200 years ago and blood from other woman. "We don't have much time."

"Here let me see her!" Wendy led the others down in the same direction, and they all became enraged and disgusted by the grave site. Her older brother set the girl down on behalf of her request.

Assessing all the bodies the ice mage became horrified. "What morons! How would they think this was okay?"

Fuzzy white paws gently touched the curvy girl's hand with the guild-mark, everyone began to chatter their opinions in the background about the grave site. and the state their blondie was in.

A blue body settled himself around his second favorite person next to Natsu, attempting to give her warmth by cuddling close. "Lucy…"

"If you would all be quiet, I might be able to figure this out." Wendy wasn't normally the commanding type, however it was in situations like these, when her own force of will came forth. She placed Lucy's body in the middle of milky-way to see if she could get any more clues to help them, help the spirit or spirits move on.

 _Crunch clink clatter, crunch clink crunch clatter skrriiitttt_ followed by a voice within darkness that sneered menacingly as it echoed off the tunnel walls, "Ah, you found her before me, oh well. That just means I'll have to take her to the altar and kill her there." Annek Warlin swished around what looked like a piece of dragon's jaw and teeth in the form of a scythe, connected by a long chain with a red ribbon. "I'm sorry I lied to you about being an acquaintance of Jellal's. I did interact with him before to book your rooms, but that was as far as that went. So I guess it wasn't a lie?" With skilled practiced swirled the weapon in front as he caught the scythe head and bent low. "I have a celestial maiden to kill, yes?"

"Over my dead body!" Natsu was enraged and landed on top of Annek's chest causing the grave floor to crack underneath them as the surrounding area went up in a massive fire. Everything burned from the explosion, unintentionally purifying old remains as spirits came up from the dismembered bones. Wendy noticed it before they fell.

Happy caught Gray, Charle caught Wendy. Erza re-quipped into her Heaven's wheel armor for flight heading straight for Lucy as Jellal flew towards Erza with wind magic.

Lucy's body glowed as a thrum of blue emanated around her when she gently hovered above a plaque big enough for one person. The plaque itself was made of ivory and stone, though you couldn't tell since it was stained black, brown and red.

Everyone bee-lined for the platform and a chorus of voices cried in unison. "Lucy!"

A row of candles lit by themselves within the extraordinarily deep cavern.

 _ **SsS**_

Dragneel turned at hearing his family's panicked cries allowing a hit in his gut from an dirty undercut by Annek's fist while the man was still pinned in the earth.

"Perfect, now I don't have to get her there myself!" Annek's eyes swirled purple with malignant glee as he leaned forward over his enemy ready to cut him to shreds

"Shut your trap asshole!" Using his arms propelled himself forward to get a good kick in the man's gut, as both feet hit Annek's lower stomach.

 _ **SsS**_

"Won't you need help?" Wendy shouted at him from their location, knowing he was somewhere in the underground cavern but the musty smell, mingled with so many centuries of death, was screwing up her nose so she couldn't pinpoint him. However she could hear his and Annek's conversation, knowing full well he could hear the rest of them.

 _ **SsS**_

With a fiery punch, to the man's face then elbowed him low into the stomach once more responded to her."Nah, this guy is a piece of cake! Focus on fixing Lucy!"

 _ **SsS**_

Taking off from the others bolted towards where he heard Natsu's voice despite his friend and arch rival telling them not too. He looked back as he ran shouting to the rest. "Like hell am I letting him going at it alone. Shit, if anything happens to her and he dies he'll haunt me for the rest of my life!"

"Be careful Gray…Wendy can you cast milky-way again see if it will coax the spirit out?" Still in her flight armor just in case they too encountered a battle of their own.

"It's what I was trying to do before we got interrupted."

"I will stay here to help you." Charle followed Erza's example and transformed into her human figure. In this way her magic was stronger.

"I'll make a barrier around us to be sure there's no interference from outside sources." Jellal paused and added with a deadpan expression, "Happy? Watch over them. Last we need is where they end up fighting each other over the enemy."

"Aye!" Happy rocketed to where Natsu was, just as Gray arrived.

The parties were now separated, Jellal, Erza Charle and Wendy were in a barrier with Lucy on the platform, while Gray and Natsu fought Annek with Happy on the way. Nobody knew the dire straits they were in till a black pulse came from Lucy's mouth.

 _ **SsS**_

"Why aren't you with the other's Gray?!" Natsu dodged a left hook from Annek as he got his footing under control with expertise.

"Something about this guy didn't feel right." He made an ice cage over Annek as the man's movement became more sporadic.

However he used his scythe to shatter the imprisonment.

"I know." Natsu used flame lotus when the dragon jaw blocked the attack absorbing the fire.

"Bastard absorbed my fire! Stop taking my role!" Natsu was prepared for another punch to land on their enemy, when Annek began to laugh creepily, throwing him off. He had to retreat a few steps so he could calculate his next move.

"Kakakakakakaka….you brats have no idea what forces you're messing with." Pulling the bone in front, kissed the dragon's scythe. "This ancient weapon was forged from our dead deity, it grants me immeasurable power to complete my task of continuing the sacrifices to Fevrit… as Nyla commanded…"

Gray and Natsu paused as they watched him throw his jaw in the air and used the chain to twirl it overhead igniting on fire. There was an eerie thick flame of indigo that enveloped him.

It turned him into a nightmarish fire dragon made of shadows.

"Ah hahahaha… after Zeref and Agnologia this is nothing!" He continued to laugh darkly, "I'm all fired up."

Gray smiled just as cockily, unleashing his demon slaying mode. "I say this guy is a demon, I don't think demons can last against us, eh Natsu?"

"Not a chance in hell." Natsu and gray high-fived each other as Natsu activated Dragon force. "Let's go." They ran straight for Annek.

 ** _SsS_**

"Wendy what's going on with Lucy?" Erza crossed her arms and paced, a black cloud now hovered over their celestial mage's entire body, while her keys glowed a bright gold angrily.

"I can't tell for certain, it seems the spirit is either forcing a fuse, or it's trying to expel itself. Till it responds to milky-way we won't know." She encased all of Lucy in the spell for a third time, since the second instance was interrupted by their host.

The spirit rose in its true form, not contorted twisted or sounding like a monster, instead a very soft and pleasant voice came through.

" _What? I'm so tired, where…the altar…why am I here… I should be dead…_ "

Wendy seemed just as perplexed as the spirit. "You lead us here. You're trying to hurt our friend."

" _Trying to hurt… Oh no… that damnable dragon…listen to me oh children of the living. The ancient script has been altered to match his whim._ "

They all looked at each other baffled. Charle was the one who spoke to the dead girl with long golden hair and deep ocean blue eyes. "The pictures on the wall said you were a vengeful spirit and you forced the family to kill others like yourself or you would end them all, two hundred years ago. Now you are making Lucy take your place."

A slow tear emerged from her beautifully pale face " _There is another here, controlling everything. When I first entered your friend it was to warn you all of this imminent peril, however the spirit of the dead dragon also resides here and he too possessed this girl. Her strength as a celestial mage, allows for her to have an unusual connection with the unseen. She didn't know and we both took advantage of that fact. For this, I apologize._ "

She could already feel herself fading fast as her spirit fused with Lucy. " _I am Nyla... It was true, I did curse the family but not in the way you think. I wanted to stop the meaningless bloodshed._ " Struggling, paused to gain her memory. " _When I was alive I warned everyone, including the villagers, they would suffer if they didn't end the dragon's life that our ancestors foolishly professed as a deity. However Fevrit's spirit somehow survived when my father and brother, killed him. He possessed my father whom in turn sacrificed me. Not knowing it was Fevrit in control, I warned my father that I would curse this family to their graves if they continued with this path. I died on this platform and for another two hundred years, the sacrifices continued all in my name proclaiming everyone would die if they didn't._ "

Nyla felt like her essence was almost gone and needed to warn them quickly, her voice coming out in somber echoed whispers. " _Fevrit deluded everyone into thinking it was me, and when the sacrifices continued… my curse activated…it wasn't until after death I figured it out… but my path… was set. I took the life from the head of the family in each generation attempting to stop the endless circle. However my efforts were in vain… as Fevrit went behind me and stole the second male or woman to inherit the village to do his bidding. It didn't matter to him…_ " Ah rest that's all she wanted, inside this girl perhaps?

Wendy broke her of her musings shouting at Nyla, "How do we stop him? How do we keep you from fusing with Lucy?" Wind encased around her form, swirling her hair as she concentrated to keep the spirit with them as long as possible.

 _"Lucy? Oh this girl? I could…rest in this girl? Soo tired…_ " Wendy's question pinged something within her, bringing her back to what she was trying to say, " _To keep us from fusing permanently… you must use a cleansing fire unlike anything else. My curse killed off the rest of this family since they went insane and murdered each other eighty years ago, which would have freed me. No thanks to Fevrit, Annek survived…and is still being possessed by the dragon…putting the man in a suspended like stasis…"_ She had enough energy to give them a clue. _"Even if fire or flame purifies the dead, the blood of shadows will revive… to break this endless circle of tragedy…all must be put to rest…_ " Nyla's voice faded as she was sucked back within the celestial mage.

"Wendy..." Jellal touched Wendy's head tenderly.

Way too many questions went through her bowed head as long blue pigtails rested against her knees taking a breather before casting milky-way once more. She was certain it was imperative to saving their friend.

 _ **SsS**_

Natsu unleashed fire dragon's roar at the same time Gray formed a sub-zero ice make spear to trap the foot of this dragon. Their hits were connecting but he seemed un-phased.

Gray made his ice bow, arched up and let loose an arrow as it landed perfectly in the dragon's eye, resulting in a painful screech from the beast."This guy won't stay down!"

Natsu unleashed his fire lightning and bulleted straight for it's abs, breaking into the cavern wall that caused a cave-in to the surrounding area where Annek landed.

"We need a new strategy, something is causing him to get all this power!"

Natsu backed up running towards Gray seeing their opponent rise and bellow a deep roar."Unison raid?" His wide boyish grin showed how proud he was of this idea.

"When was the last time we attempted a unison raid. Our magic isn't compatible."

"We achieved it during Phantom Lord's attack, against Precht."

Annek slammed his fist in between them while they debated, splitting them apart as they dodged.

"No time for complaints, let's try it."

"If this doesn't work…" Gray made a cannon out of pink ice freezing everything else in its wake.

"Yeah, yeah blame me." Natsu sunk into the cannon as he felt Gray's magic wrap around his waist.

"Ice Make"

"Fire Dragon's"

"BLAST/ROAR" He shot Natsu off like a rocket when they shouted in sync. The dragon slayer managed to carry Gray's magic with him as he went right for Annek's jugular.

"Unison raid fire demon's ice lotus spin" He twirled in mid-air freezing and burning Annek at the same time, when he caught an unusual scent coming from the dragon's mouth mixed with the human's. He threw up after the attack nauseated.

"What's with you? You aren't on a vehicle!"

The fire shadow dragon fell and writhed in sheer agony on the ground, when Natsu walked up queasily to find the scent bothering him. The scythe, he noticed, was exposed like an exoskeleton and the chain dangled almost like a piercing. It was the only part of the Shadow Dragon that seemed to be penetrable and the source of the smell.

Natsu waved towards Gray rapidly, the beast was starting to get up. "Doesn't matter. I need you shoot your arrow over here!"

"Done deal." Gray let loose the requested arrow from his ice bow as Natsu caught it in mid-air and jabbed into the scythe breaking it in two. The dragon disappeared leaving Annek who appeared to be weak and not at all in accordance to who they were at war with moments prior.

"What is this?! He didn't even get back up to challenge us like the rest of them." Gray gestured in huge disappointment from a distance. "I'm ashamed of myself."

"I think… we were really fighting this." He picked up the broken scythe when it pulsed with magic and dropped it. "That was the grossest damn thing I've ever felt. Here, you take it to Wendy."

"Shit no, I ain't touching that. You take it!" He tossed it to Natsu like it was a hot-potato.

"And they were working so well together before." Happy lifted his arms in a I-have-no-idea way.

 _ **SsS**_

"Wendy we need to do something, Lucy has almost been completely overshadowed by Nyla." Erza watched as their friend became more and more like the dead girl.

"That's it!" The entire time Wendy was musing over what Nyla meant. Then she remembered how Natsu's flames, in pure rage purified the bones cremating them.

"We need Natsu."

"I knew you would figure it out Wendy." Erza called on Natsu and Gray telepathically 'Natsu we need you here, your fire can help Lucy.' They all heard explosions, roaring and saw dust clouds coming from the north east side of where the altar was. Clearly a heavy battle was taken place. Thankfully Wendy was done interrogating Nyla in time for the dust to clear and for them to send their plea.

 _ **SsS**_

"Shit that's right, Lucy…" Natsu got the message but his nose was screwed up from this cavern as much as he was sure Wendy's was.

"Happy do you remember the direction the others were in?"

"Aye sir! You don't even have to tell me."

"You're awesome. Gray bring the scythe!"

"Who do you think you're ordering around?" Gray smiled picking up the scythe, then used his magic to surf alongside them.

 _ **SsS**_

Happy lowered Natsu down within the barrier as Gray dropped inside not long after. Lucy's form thrummed a deep purple in tune with the shattered half.

Shadow creatures began to crawl out from every crevice.

"Natsu hurry!" Erza was done and over their predicament as she studied the vicinity.

"What do you want me to do?" Natsu looked around at the different shadow creatures, then down at Lucy whose body began to rise up.

"Kakaka…" _hack hack hack cough._ "You're too late, Nyla shall rise again within that girl." Annek who now looked to be over a hundred had small white strands from his head, large brown spots on his skin that appeared like it was going to fall off his bones. He pointed with his last breath. _Hack hack wheeze,_ "May Fevrit forever reign...now **_die_** …"

Natsu didn't waste any time by climbing up to the platform, then placed a hand over where her heart lay. "I won't stab her like ya wanted me too." Looking deep in the dead girl's face that was overshadowing Lucy, he felt a surge of anger and frustration.

"Natsu, you need to generate fire." Wendy said desperately holding milky-way together.

Jellal made a second barrier made of white magic to deter these evil beings long enough to accomplish their rescue mission. The blue haired man with the elaborate marking underneath his left eye began to sweat. He looked back to see what everyone's situation was when he saw it. "What you need to do, is make this quick! They are gaining in on us and weird purple smoke is going _**into**_ Lucy."

"I think I got it." Natsu had a very smug expression as he generated a flame that he channeled into the woman in his arms. His fire, he could tell went under her skin, she convulsed squirming as her body locked up painfully contorted. "Hang in there." He generated more, not with-holding an ounce of magic.

The scythe responded by burning up too when Wendy came to a revelation. "Milky-way mixed with your fire!" Her hunch, was right, she thought fire would be enough. But seeing the effects resonating together realized why she felt milky-way was imperative also. They had to mix. Similar to a unison raid, but way more delicate.

Wendy channeled her milky-way spell to move with Natsu's fire. A white ethereal glow emitted from Lucy's mouth, nose, eyes, finger tips and soles of her feet, wrapping around her like it was protecting her from any harm.

The piece of the scythe began to seep a thick disgusting black ooze, as it bubbled out of the bone. Gray noticed that the ooze was trying to reach for their spirit mage. ' _Wasn't the scythe supposed to burn too? Where was the other…oh…_ 'After berating himself and Natsu for their stupidity called out, "Happy, we need the other half, we forgot it!"

"Aye sir! Come on Charle!" Charle switched to her Exceed form at Happy's request.

Jellal saw the shadows on top of their barriers as he held it against super natural forces and whispered. "Happy, Charle come back soon."

 _ **SsS**_

"Why didn't they bring both pieces to start with?"

"You know Gray and Natsu don't think things through!" Happy flew as fast as he could till they spotted the other half with the chain. Both exceeds froze when they saw the red ribbon at the end turn midnight black.

"That isn't a good sign." Charle went into her human form and tried lifting the chain but was burnt instantly. "Ow!" Dropping it the saw the chain sink into the ground as though the cavern attempted to eat it. Changing back into her exceed form flew up as Happy proceeded to pull the other half of the scythe from the ground. Charle helped him as best she could with now achingly burnt paws, then frowned seeing her partner's paws begin to singe also.

"This thing won't budge!" Happy pulled and pulled with all his might, when he felt a familiar gentle hand on his tiny shoulder. "Lucy?" Then the chain released almost with a sigh.

 _ **SsS**_

At the platform directly next to Erza on the north west side, their barrier began to lose hold as thousands upon thousands overwhelmed their forces. "Erza even for me, this is a bit much." Grunting as he nearly fell to his knees refused to fall, and instead went past his limits to strengthen their defenses.

"Wendy, Gray what's going on over there?" Erza sent the second ring of swords into the fields at the north east side of their small defense barrier, "Dance my blades!" Taking out any shadow creatures that managed to get in as Gray made a triple headed spear.

Gray was at the south west side closest to the three in question. "Wendy is in a difficult trance to keep milky-way open as long as possible for Natsu to work his fire, however it seems that Natsu himself is well…how do I put it. His eyes went white a few seconds ago."

"What does that mean?" Erza released trinity sword at more creatures as they faded into obliterated smoke.

He grunted and stabbed another shadow spirit with an ice lancer. "I'm sure Wendy could give more insight if she was actually here with us. It seems like they went into so some sort of trance at once."

"Lets pray our fuzzy friends arrive in time." Jellal pushed the barrier back since he saw it flicker for a brief instant.

"Don't lose hope Jellal. We've gotten out of tougher scraps worse than this before. Just keep on fighting." With that Erza requipped into her Flame Empress armor and unleashed a wave of fire, clearing away another wave of enemies.

 _ **SsS**_

"What is this place?" Lucy walked around a room filled with beautiful kimonos, furniture and tatami mats. The doors were painted with sakura blossoms during spring.

"You are seeing my memories."

"Nyla…wait… am I dead..." Lucy frantically checked herself and for her friends that rest on her hip. "Where are my keys?"

"No. You are not dead… nor are we alive. We are in between because your keys are preventing me from fusing with you completely. Your spirits are very cross with me and Fevrit."

"Aquarius is going to kill me for getting possessed." Lucy sweat dropped at the mere thought.

"Lucy, two flying cats are attempting to keep Fevrit from reviving by obtaining the other half those two men failed to take with them. I think they are idiots for not taking both pieces to start with."

She looked away awkwardly, "Figures I almost die because of Gray and Natsu. It was going to happen one of these days."

"There is hope yet, but before this you must understand what was happening while you've been asleep." Nyla gracefully walked over to Lucy, took her middle and index finger gently touched the center of Lucy's forehead, causing a wave of not only Nyla's memories but of the events following from when she was possessed in the first place.

 _ **SsS**_

Sighs of relief washed over all three warriors as Charle and Happy flew in, with strained eyes enlarged from panic and pain. "We got it, we got it!" Charle with Happy threw the piece in. They collapsed under the blood filled platform next to Wendy not long after.

From her position during battle took a pause to praise their achievement."Well done you two!"

It made them smile proudly despite their condition.

Erza, Jellal and Gray fought with all their might, as the overwhelming numbers seemed to double after bringing the dark weapon within their defenses. Jellal casted meteor causing all of them to vanish at once. It worked for a brief period when more showed up like a cancer.

"Erza, we can't keep this up for much longer." He was casting defense and offense magic at once to keep them alive.

Erza drop kicked an enemy as she re-quipped into her pure heart armor. "We can do this, don't despair!"

Gray unleashed a ton of ice spears, slaying many foe. "Can those three be any slower?!"

 _ **SsS**_

Natsu came to a white room. It was very similar to his inner conflict on choosing between the form a demon or a dragon, that resulted in both seeds destroying themselves as he proclaimed to be human. "Eh? If I have to go through this again…"

" _Fear not. I brought you here, as well as the blue haired girl and Lucy._ "

"Nyla, what did you do to Lucy?"

" _Calm down._ " Placing a hand on his chest stopped him, only for him to shove her hand away.

"Where is she?"

" _Lucy was seeing my memories, current events and aiding your exceeds in their endeavors. However that was some time ago. Now you must listen, you have to destroy me and both pieces of the scythe at once. If not, Fevrit will revive and the cycle will continue. Except Lucy will suffer the endless war between the Shadow Dragon and myself._ "

"Ha, you make it sound like it's hard. Let me go, I'll fix your mess." Natsu placed his hands on his hips confidently with a very wide grin.

" _I was hoping you would say that._ " A smile filled with mirth flitted across gentle features as Nyla let everyone go, save for Lucy who she was still trapped in.

 _ **SsS**_

Natsu finally became lucid when he saw how dire their situation was. Wendy was still in a deep trance. Nyla must be speaking with her about something. However he peered into Lucy's blank eyes once more and placed her down directly on the platform. He channeled his fire around the celestial maid's being, overwhelming everything around him, that would burn with delicate precision anything he wished.

Milky-way gave his magic cleansing properties and the entire room went white.

Everything disappeared along with the village, leaving old ruins. The bloody cycle was broken.

Milky-way died down with the last of Wendy's magic reserves. She exhausted herself. "Wendy!" It was Erza who caught the fainting girl before Charle could get to her.

"I- I'm alright."

"So... you're telling me... even the _ **building**_ and the village were a ghosts?" Gray wandered about, not hoping to find any remnant of the Onsen left.

"I'm not sad it's gone, though we never did get our bath eh Erza." Erza, while still holding Wendy, threw a pebble at Jellal's head for the sly comment. "Ow." He rubbed and grinned mischievously.

"I for one, am glad this is over. We never did get to soak in a hot spring nor did we find our treasure, but we made it out…alive. That is what is most important."

"Come on Charle, you're cuter as a cat."

"Happy, I am stronger in this form, you know this."

During everyone's banter Natsu held Lucy's form close, waiting for her to open her eyes. He didn't care about an entire location disappearing, he just wanted Lucy to wake up. "Come on… We're all waiting for you." Lucy bolted up from his arms in a coughing fit, like she had been without air for some time.

Everyone celebrated in unison, Natsu stepped back as they crowded around her. Happy ran into her stomach for cuddles.

"Wendy did Nyla tell you?" Lucy scratched behind Happy's ears.

"Oh!" Wendy stood from Erza and smacked her fist into her palm. "That's right! I totally forgot!"

"What's up?" Natsu became relaxed in seeing all of his nakama and Lucy safe.

"Follow me!" She ran into the direction where an old cave was, showing the same ancient script with Nyla's story and an old canister. "Here it is!" Holding up an elaborately decorated urn, made of porcelain untied the old seal.

"Now Wendy, should you really be doing that?" The white Exceed thought the girl lost her mind.

"It's fine Charle. Nyla told me too." After untying the urn, ran outside. "It was her wish." She set the open urn outside where the wind suddenly picked up ashes in a mini cyclone.

Nyla appeared before everyone, dressed in the most gorgeous kimono anyone had the pleasure to lay their eyes on. It was embroidered with the old bathhouse and her entire family, as pictures moved with changing seasons. Every time they looked, they could see it was reflecting different scenes from her tale. " _Well done Wendy! Underneath the old shrine, where you found my ashes, lies a sacred treasure. I think it might help you on your quest._ " A beam of blue came from her index as she pointed to the shrine, you could hear and feel the earth shake as something moved. " _That is the last of my power. I am finally going to join my family in the afterlife, thank you... all of you..._ " Little balls of light sectioned off as they flickered within the sun, vanishing from this world forevermore.

Gray and Jellal investigated the old shrine, not without noticing how the ancient script disappeared from the wall along with Nyla. It was Jellal that picked up a jade painted box, from within a small opening under the shrine, with a white square knot, sealing it from the elements.

Gray shirtless, stuffed his hands into his cargo pants. "Come look at this!" Everyone swarmed into the shrine, curious as to what was found. Once they saw Jellal holding a mystery box, all leaned forward crowding around him in anticipation as he opened it. A puff of dust emerged throwing all of them into a coughing fit. Though after the dust cleared, they discovered a scroll on yellowed rice paper tied with a red string.

Jellal opened it excitedly. "It's a map!" Each one took turns to see, till the map landed in Erza's hands. "It talks about a sacred egg born from winged beasts, this map is supposed to lead us to the village that has kept it safe all these centuries!" Everyone smiled with this new found breakthrough.

"Erza, may I speak with you?" Jellal spoke loud enough where the others could hear clearly, with a tender hand on her shoulder.

They all stepped outside respecting Jellal's wish and ogled the ancient map like it was a new found toy. Gray held it above Wendy's head so she could jump for it when Natsu snatched it out from Gray. Charle panicked fearing for the map's safety, while Happy had a sweat drop form on his forehead. Lucy requested the map back, to which Natsu teased her and it ended with all them chasing Natsu for it. Till Happy took Gray off guard asking him where his pants went, again.

"It never gets boring with them around." Jellal stated in a matter of fact way as he and Erza watched the childish scene from afar.

"Not at all. Though it's good for them to behave this way sometimes." Wind brushed strands of red scarlet in front of Erza's face from within the cavern. She herself hadn't changed much. To her and Jellal they looked the same as they did before they left for this quest years ago.

"I have another investigation to go on, something about a book of Zeref that managed to survive. I feel the rumor to have little merit, but on the safe side I have to go check it out."

"So you have to leave us here?" Erza looked down in a forlorn way.

Jellal brushed the wayward strands back from her features, and lovingly held her head with both hands as he leaned down to press his forehead against hers making him nose to nose. "I'm not saying good bye Erza, just that it will be a while before I can see you again. I owe you an Onsen trip after this disaster don't I?"

Erza fought back tears when she looked up at her lover, "I hope you will have better timing next go around. You were late for this one."

Jellal closed the gap with a gentle kiss. "I'll call for you soon… Erza." With that he disappeared. From outside the re-quip mage heard a foreboding sentence.

Gray's voice went an octave higher. "Erza's gonna kill us!"

Leave it to them to keep her from shedding tears, now she's more concerned of what they did to possibly invoke her fury.

"Us? You mean you, right?"

"Natsu it was your fault the map…"

Erza listened on when she began to sweat. ' _The map? What happened with their sacred map, bestowed upon them from beyond the grave_?' Erza's mind snapped and joined the others outside.

"What happened with the map?"

"NOTHING!" Gray, Natsu, Lucy, Wendy, Happy and Charle smiled as huge and as fake as possible in a single file line, while each one held a pieces of the map in their hand.

Erza didn't believe them for a moment however let it slide, for now. "Where did the map say to go from here?"

Lucy, from her place as third in line, addressed Charle who was last and laughed nervously. "He he he, yeah Charle, where did the map say to go next?"

Charle usually so composed held her portions from behind hoping that it wouldn't look too suspicious. "It says to travel from this mountain over to the next valley in the west." Charle hid the pieces within a pocket on her blue collared blouse when Erza wasn't looking.

Erza bent down to Charle's level after catching movement in her peripheral vision. "Very well, that's where we should head. What was the valley called?"

Nervously stepping back as a cold sweat broke out behind her neck, glanced in every direction except at Erza. "The valley was called Windsor Valley. The village is Piklend."

Erza walked away from Charle, much to the group's relief, to find their things. It was magically located in one pile, as though they never made it inside the bathhouse. "Let's go."

The entire group yelled "Aye!"

From behind, Erza's sharp hearing picked up more panicked whispers.

"We're all gunna die."

"Shut-up Happy, do you want her to find out?"

"Gray she can HEAR us you know, no matter how low we whisper!"

"Lucy I _**swear**_ I didn't mean to do it."

"Natsu not one word from you, it's your fault the map is what it is now."

"How many times, do I have to say I'm sorry?"

Lucy, Grey, Charle and Happy just pointed to Erza walking a bit in front of them, shutting the fire mage up.

Erza could be ditzy sometimes but she wasn't stupid, looking back they all had their best behavior going. She swore she would find out what they were up too, one of them would slip. It was only a matter of time.


	8. Chapter 8-Windsor Valley

A/N: Finally out of the Onsen, and into the valley. I wrote Onsen Part I and II during Hurricane Irma. The winds were picking up and my room window was boarded, so I had decent inspiration.

I will be responding to Reviews and such at the end of my chapters :D Though I have another shout out to my followers **Glass Dragon's Rose, JcL107, StellaTendrisx17, Cough Cough1** (If I hadn't already given you a shout out. I honestly can't remember so just in case), **lopezxitalic29, mschexmix, Nova1487** (again I can't remember so I'm doing it again just in case), **msfemjem, MTherez** ( again I have a terrible memory at times and I'm too lazy to look back at previous chapters) and **TheRamenKid**.

To my favoritees: **Fluffy The Terrible, MThereze (** I think I gave you a shout out before, I really don't remember but JUST IN CASE), **StellaTenedrisx17, TheRamenKid, angelus999, cough cough1, emmibearnac** it's you guys that make writing this worth while. As long as one of you enjoy it then that's all the more worth it to continue this story.

This goes to you my reviewers, my favoritees and my followers.

Disclaimer: Though I love the little trouble makers, I don't own Fairy Tail.

* * *

Chapter 8-Windsor Valley

The valley was flat, with tall wheat grass in every direction. The A team had been seeing grass for three days straight, causing everyone to get antsy and judging from the position of the sun, it was about noon.

"Can this get any more boring?"

"Natsu calm down, we should be there soon." It was Wendy who cracked first, she couldn't stand to lie anymore and showed her multiple torn up pieces of the map. Natsu pulled on it while it was in Gray's possession, then Lucy tried to stop him by tugging on the delicate rice paper also, resulting in Charle attempting to pull on the map from above as her claws sunk into it. Happy's claws happened to be in the center waving for them to stop. The map gave way resulting in all of them slipping. The map shredded into many different pieces. Erza made them all fix it with glue and tape. Their map looked real shoddy, but they could still discern its directions...she hoped.

"I want to let loose, that last fight with the bogus dragon wasn't even enough to get me to sweat."

Gray chewed on a piece of wheat to help curb the craving for nicotine, since Scarlett so kindly pushed him to dump his box of cigarettes. He stuffed his hands into his white cloak over a black shirt. "Quit complaining."

"Ya wanna go at it?" Natsu knocked his head up against Gray's, who in turn pushed back down since he was two inches taller. It resulted in grunts and pushing each other back and forth.

Lucy, much shorter than both men, pushed between them with a glare that could match a certain red haired monster when angry. "Knock it off."

They gulped, "Yes mam."

"Thank you, now I don't have to intervene." Erza still had her nose in the map attempting to figure out if they were anywhere close to the village.

"We can call you Erza soft!" Happy was rewarded with three lumps after Lucy hit him with her fist.

The said woman had been on edge lately, her period started despite Wendy's magic to help stall the process. However it came and she felt incredibly gross, having to stop every hour to two hours making sure she didn't bleed through her clothes. Natsu never complained when they had to stop so she could go. The other girls often went with her so she wasn't alone. She wore comfortable black cargo pants with a black tank top and traveling boots.

Natsu looked at Happy through one eye and shook his head no at him. Happy was stunned for a minute at the gesture, then felt bad. Was Lucy sick?

"Lucy, are you feeling okay? You've been grouchy the past few days."

Natsu waved desperately at his Exceed to stop.

Lucy paused and cuddled him in understanding that the Exceed wouldn't know any better. "I'm alright, I just don't feel good."

The pyromaniac let out a breath he was holding, and the ice mage put his face in his palm. "Happy, Lucy is on her period."

She dropped her favorite fuzzy blue cat with wide eyes, then turned her head like a robot. "Aaaannndd how do you know _this_ , **Gray**?"

Just the way she spoke his name made him take two steps back hesitantly with his hands in front, hopefully diffusing the woman. "Don't blame me! Natsu told me not to bother you too much this week. He says that once a month like clockwork since we've known you. I put two and two together."

His eyes bulged at being ousted, expecting the worst, like he was about to become dragon kibble. He broke into a cold sweat as Lucy marched towards him; watching her, prepared for a punch, kick or some sort of bodily harm. Instead he realized the blonde was rather calm.

"Thank you, for trying to help me out." Surprising herself, she kissed his cheek in a friendly way then went to discuss things with their youngest dragon slayer.

Gray, Happy and Natsu stood there like hell froze over.

She glanced back with a wink and dawning a grin, teased. "Come on, we don't have all day!"

Breaking out of their stupor, walked behind their four female counterparts. "Woman are weird." They all agreed to Natsu's statement, who also had a tinge of pink to his cheeks.

 _ **SsS**_

A week. A solid week passed. The group smelled like they hadn't bathed in a month, though it wasn't far off from the truth. Natsu and Wendy kept a wide birth from the others since it was the hottest part of the late afternoon.

"Ya'll need a bath. If you knew how gross you guys smelled, you'd be over here with me."

Wendy just held Charle with nervous laughter.

"Not like you smell any better!" His shaggy black haired self made a decision tired of Natsu's complaints. He walked over with his arms raised and tackled the fire mage into the ground with his sweaty naked armpit right in his rival's nose. "SUFFER!"

Natsu yelled with a high pitch.

"Will you both, for the love of _GOD_ , behave! Do I have to come over there?!" Pulling out her sword for emphasis, began the count. " _One_ ," The guys were still fighting when they heard two then stopped.

"Natsu as punishment you have to walk with the rest of us."

"What?! How…how close."

Erza just smiled wickedly with hair over her eyes.

That's how Natsu found himself under Erza's arm, the armor made her smell worse than all the others. Gray was under the other one. He appeared as though he would faint from sensory overload from being in such a close proximity. "…This sucks..."

Charle heard the comment from within Wendy's arms. "Well if you boys hadn't fought, you would have been able to keep your places, but alas you caused trouble. So you have no room to fuss about your current situation." Then mumbled, "They used to stop at one."

The sky maiden hated to break it to her white fuzzy exceed. "Charle, you smell pretty bad too."

Catching up with the two girls interjected their conversation. "I bet I smell great compared to the rest of you."

Lucy paced over to where Wendy was. "No Happy, I'm afraid you're in the same boat as the rest of us." Till their healer forced back a grimace. "Oops sorry Wendy." Walking back towards the others, gave an affirmative thumbs up. "This good?"

"Yes!" Long blue, now greasy hair, tilted to the side as her shoulders slumped with an exhausted sigh. "Charle, I hope we get there soon. I don't know how much more we can take…in more ways than one." Her voice had a hint of disgust to it.

 _ **SsS**_

Eight days. Eight days of traveling, arguing and hot sticky air. By the time the eighth day rolled around they had to sleep as far away as possible while still being in range, sick of each other and how they smelled. Everyone was cranky from hunger, discomfort, and lack of sleep due to the endless cycle of all three reasons. Lucy was happy she was done with her cycle, but that left her with a whole new feeling of gross being unable to bathe during that time. Then Erza's kicked up. Needless to say, they all wanted to murder one another by that night.

It was on the ninth day they finally came to a village at twilight. All of them had been so ecstatic they forgot their manners and flocked to the village as though they won the lottery. Not realizing there was a gate with wooden pikes.

"HALT…oh mi god!" The single guard, dressed in leather wrapped around his legs, arms and torso, with a feather band around his head, held his nose and doubled over. "Get em ta our hot springs en FAST!" Shouting to the watch post, saw one of their men back up as they opened the gate just enough for a couple of people to get through.

It was his General who approached with two more guards in tow, and a much deeper voice with the same strange accent as his own. "Trevis, what's the ma…dar glory ta hell fire!" He started to hack and in the process dropped his spear, that hooked over forward, attempting to catch a breath. "Nope, he's right get em ta da springs!" He had an eye patch, dark maroon hair and layered armor in different shades of leather form fitting his torso. His belt had been made of bone from a boar.

"General Scillio! Men what are ye doin' standin thar! Aid yer general!"

"Yis sar!" The soldiers all had uniforms similar to Trevis, except theirs slanted to the right, leaving a portion of their stomach and thigh open. Picking up their General ran inside, dragging his heavy form all the way. "We're goin ta need help, keep yar distance men!" Foot soldiers came out, and pointed their spears while turning their heads away, with red clothes over their noses.

The general mused while being aided. _'None be knowin our location cept our trade runnars connected to tha big city, so how did seven god-awful smellin' missfits find us?_ ' He needed answers.

Team Natsu heard bath and they were in heaven, not caring how everyone reacted to their plight. Every soldier, from what they assumed was Pikeland, walked them to the bath after herding them close to one another similar to cattle. Unsure if they were under arrest or not, happily complied as they towed all their stuff with them.

It was Trevis who spoke with his own orange cloth over his face, protecting him from the smell. "We will come fetch you en some time, we…" He almost threw up in his mouth. "Guuhh…ave' qwestions." With that slammed the wooden door.

The spring was wide and long, separated into a male and female side. They didn't waste any time to strip, even in front of each other, then plunged into their respective bathes. They all scrubbed and washed like their lives depended on it.

Lucy felt a million times better. "Hey, how are we going to wash our clothes?"

Everyone cringed thinking they had to put the same clothes back on, till a woman in a simple leather tunic that hung to her feet and tied at her waist, came in with a brown rag over her nose. She used a pitchfork to shuffle their laundry out the door and in its place a pile of fresh new clothes.

"I really hope we get those back…"

"Wendy, I think it would be for our benefit, that we didn't." Gray sunk further on his side of the hot spring. The only wall separating the men from the females had been made of bamboo without a roof, making conversation easy to be had.

It seemed the only type of clothing available was leather. Natsu ended up wearing a vest that barely went over his stomach, with leather britches stopping at his calf. He used his scarf as a wrap to make him more comfortable and pulled on his sandals for easier movement.

Erza had a top that tied in the back of her neck and around under her chest, much like a bathing suit, wrapping around her waist and hips, in a weird zig zagging pattern. Her skirt was two flaps that covered her front and back end, also choosing sandals over boots.

Gray decided shirtless was better and chose pants that went leg length underneath mahogany shaded boots.

Wendy decided on a simple top tying in the back and wrapped around in front, making a bow above her stomach, she had a regular skirt with sandals.

Lucy picked capris like britches with two leather pieces like suspenders tying into the sleeveless strapless top and leather shoes that stopped at her ankles.

Charle wore a simple small dress sewn in patches, with little black boots.

They all agreed if they ever saw leather again it would be too soon.

"This shit is itchy!" Natsu was scratching like a bear.

"If you keep scratching you'll only aggravate it more, who knew you were so sensitive to that much leather." The blonde celestial mage huffed, watching him caused her to feel itchy too.

"We've been waiting here for what feels like hours, when are they going to come release us. It's like they're using the bath as a means for imprisonment…" Gray shuffled, rather uncomfortable in his own clothes. He went to strip, but realized he actually had to work undressing. "Can we get interrogated, so we can leave to the next stop? Erza, how many places do we have to go too?"

Thankfully the map didn't get mixed in with their attire that had been taken. "It seems after this village, we have to travel further south closer to a desert. I thought this was Pikeland, but it seems Pikeland is located in Bengai Desert. Charle misread because her pieces didn't go together. Windsor Valley, that makes this Rivendor village…Wait…what?" Upon Further study of the map, noticed all of it in the wrong place, the roads weren't matching up. "I should have realized such a simple error, you pieced the map wrong!" Fisting the map turned on her six counterparts "You have Pikeland in the Bengai Desert and Karton City in Windsor Valley, it looks like Finreal Ruins is in the middle of a random forest instead of in Skyline! Ugh and you have Rivendor in Skyline instead of Wetland like it's supposed too!"

There was a silent gust of wind that blew as they're eyes went wide and jaws dropped to the floor at this massive mistake and their re-quip mage's outburst. "Now we have to ask for supplies tell them we are passing through, and maybe they'll let us go. Thankfully…" Struggling to read the misconfigured map, turned it in a constant rotation in order to figure out how the roads connected, "We can cut through…Rivendor?" She paused thinking it may have been wrong, "No wait Mostle? What _IS_ this?" Having enough turned on them ferociously.

" _ **You WILL fix the map**_!"

 _ **SsS**_

Erza watched fuming, "Natsu are you itching?"

Natsu paused and they proceeded to delicately cut the map apart like a puzzle piece. Lucy had Crux out in order to help them determine if the roads were right.

With his elbow on his knee and black haired head in his palm, motioned to Crux with the free hand accusingly. "Why is he sleeping at a time like this?"

"Ah… no. He's actually searching through celestial archives that hold ancient roads that might be similar to our map."

"Ah…"

" **OOOOHHHH**!" Old Man Crux startled everyone, then pointed out where their mistakes were.

 _ **SsS**_

It took five stressful hours, delicate precision and constant instruction from Crux to get the map to what it was. The one who summoned him in the first place was exhausted from using so much magic for such a long period of time.

After they were finished Erza smiled. "Well done." Picking it up to investigate their work, discerned their location and where they should be headed. "Alright this makes much more sense, Windsor Valley is where we are located. This village is definitely Pikeland, however we have to pass through Skyline in the Finreal Ruins, then onward to Karton City, next is Rivendor in the Wetlands and finally it says the egg is in Mostle in the Bengai Desert. It's…" Placing her forehead in her palm, couldn't believe the journey they were going to have to continue on. "…Six more months away, on foot from here to the south. As far south as we can think of here in Earthland..." Pausing for effect, faced everyone. "They did not make it easy to find our egg's location."

A guard finally stepped in ready to question them, relieved that they smelled normal. "Our general wishes to interrogate you."

Lucy, along with everyone else, felt like she had a fifty ton weight on her shoulders. "Let's get this over with…"

 _ **SsS**_

General Scillio was a very understanding man. Once he was told of the weird misfit's plight, actually sympathized with them. All seven people were in his quarters within the military section of the village, made of stones and clay ceramic roofing that pointed upward in a cylindrical cone. The wide circumferenced room had leather coating every inch of the walls and roof. It was made of cowhide, horsehide and buffalo-hide. The chair he was sitting was made of willow wood pikes and teeth from different beasts, tied together with intestinal lining from lamb as string. Erza sat seizan style on his bear rug over a dirt floor to determine negotiations. "So ya aren't here fer stealin' our leather worken secrets, an jus are on a varry long journey ta finden this miss'n egg?"

Erza stood in as vocal representative. "Yes precisely. We only need rest, and to restock on previsions. Then we will be out of your way. We will even give back the clothes you've given us as a means of our sincerity."

It did not take long to decide on his part. The deep maroon haired man with the eye patch wanted them out as soon as possible. "How long till yur able ta leave?"

"We only need three days of rest, then we'll be out of your village."

Three days was still too much time. ' _Maybe I canna aim fer tew…_ ' His gruff voice, deep and commanding gave an answer as he propped one booted foot up on his table with a map of the village on it, shaking the entire piece of furniture from his muscled leg. "Too long."

Erza squared her shoulders. "We cannot go any less than three, I'm afraid."

The General pondered for a moment, then decided that three shouldn't be so bad. Their imported leather would be what was shown. It's what these weird people were wearing as well as the villagers. "Three it tis then, but ya will leave farst light on tha thard day. No qwestions ask'd?"

Smiling in triumphant relief from the success of their negotiations, let loose a breath as her partners stayed quiet. "That is more than doable, I accept your terms."

Standing from his seat eyed Erza lazily. "You're a feisty one aren't ye? Ever thought've becomin' a wife?" Stroking his strong chin with stubble and scars winked at her.

Chiming in not comfortable with how he began to treat her friend, embellished on the woman's relationship with Jellal and held Happy for support practically choking him. "Ahhh sir, I'm afraid she already has a fiance'."

The General chuckled a bit. ' _Eh might's well have fun wit em_.' Turning toward the girl walked up to her and towered over all of them, very similar to Guildarts in height, possibly taller. "Aww tis so? En wat bout yew blondie? Yew been tak'n as a wife yet?"

Natsu pushed Lucy behind him tenderly, easily shielding her from view as he stood and stared up at the man, steeling his gaze challenging him to back off.

A maroon peppered eyebrow furrowed down, while studying the strange haired lad's reaction towards the blonde lass. He quirked a grin. "I see how it tis then!" His laugh was deep and thundered throughout the room, breaking the tension that had been caused. Scillio placed his hands on his hips knowingly. "Ya need ta lay har soon laddy, before s'mone else takes har."

Gray palmed his entire face at the comment, then put his hands together like a sarcastic prayer. "See! That's what I've been saying! Finally someone else says it!"

"Can it. You don't know what you're talking about." The fire mage berated his favorite asshole behind him as he and Lucy blushed in unison. Truth was, little by little he understood _more_ of what was going on inside his own heart, ever since Lucy kissed him so despairingly. However he still didn't quite grasp it yet. He did notice his body reacted differently when it came to her and the desire to touch her increased tenfold.

"Lucy…air…I need…air…" Happy's eyes looked like they were going to pop out of their sockets.

"Oh… sorry Happy…here…" Letting him go, she heard him breathe and watched as he face planted into the ground, giving her a paws up as a signal that he was okay.

"Umm… ? We can go to our place of rest now right?"

"Ahh na worries lil' miss lassy, mi gard on tha ousside shall bring ye." Patting the blue haired girl on the head smiled warmly at her. "Yew an yur fuzzy white cat will sleep nice n snug. N fact all yar clothes are bein mended good an new as we speak! Ya can traval again n no time!"

This news brought them joy.

 _ **SsS**_

As per General Scillio's wishes, he had his guards take them to their own spare cottage built exactly the same way the General's quarters had been. Apparently they weren't allowed in the village. They were being kept in the military base and got settled into surprisingly comfortable beds on the floor made of downy, warm animal hide and pure cotton for the chilly nights in Windsor Valley. They quickly settled in seeing how high the moon was, despite it being fairly cloudy. A wave of weariness overtook all of them.

 _ **SsS**_

Natsu and Lucy laid wide awake with their backs facing each other, the general's comment lingering between them like a thorn from a rose. The two somehow ended up in the middle of their friends by some cruel twist of fate. The moon shined down on them from the opening of the hut, signifying it was late in the night, since none of them remembered to pull the string that closed circular top closed.

His pink spikey haired head turned, wanting to be near her like he'd gotten used to being whenever he stayed over at her apartment. He saw her shiver and heard a sniff causing his body to act on its own, betraying him.

Suddenly a much taller figure engulfed her with warmth. She felt all tension release realizing who it was. Lucy understood the comments between Gray and the General, but hearing his response tore her into shreds. When she thought everyone was asleep, released the tears freely, suffocating in her own sadness with no way out. She didn't suspect him of all people to be awake. Feeling him shift to be under the same covers, unintentionally snuggled against him.

Lucy tried to keep her emotions under control at feeling him there, truly she did. However her extraordinary deep love and desire for the man caused her to shamefully turn her head into his chest instead, intertwining their legs together, which he readily accepted. She couldn't help feeling her heart break more when the full weight of it crash in around her. '… _We really do sleep like we're lovers_ …' It was a thought nobody else would hear, only a nod to her wounded soul as more salt water poured through. She hated herself in this moment, knowing Natsu could fully hear and smell her anguish but not realize she was satisfying her own want.

A deep heady sigh came as though he was holding his breath and held her head in his chest to keep her warm, generating a bit of magic to raise his body temperature just enough for it to be comfortable. He listened to her cry as he held her tighter, feeling her whole body shake from muffled whimpers while clinging to his bare torso since he ditched the leather top a while ago, opting for Gray's choice of garb instead. He didn't say anything and held her the rest of the night till she calmed down, not ready to know what placed her in this fragile state to begin with and for his own selfishness being able to touch her.

Erza, Gray, Wendy, Happy and Charle heard the movement, some shuffling and Lucy's tears begin to quiet. They all internally cried alongside their Summoner without shedding a drop, but smiled when they knew who went to comfort said woman. Scooching away from the center, became more comfortable within their own bedding to give Lucy and Natsu some space.

* * *

A/N: I won't lie, the part where Lucy was in such despair got to me hard. I've dealt with a similar situation however I was laying next to my boyfriend and he didn't even hear my despair or do anything about it. I felt completely at a loss. So I wanted to give them what I never had. Some sort of comfort and a little light. Also I admit I am shipper trash _ I spend all my free time writing this fic and reading others. Like you don't want to know _**how**_ much fanfic I have read. I have books and manga LOL

A/N: I don't know how to tag but I think this is it? I bold the names right?

 **Cough Cough1:** **Thank you so much for your positive review, I'm going to do my absolute best!**

 **FangirlFanatic:** **I'm so glad you think so!**

 **MThereze:** **Yay! I'm glad you like it!**


	9. Chapter 9-Scents Tell Tales

A/N: Alright guys, so I'm sure you noticed the rating. This chapter was NOT easy to write, and it's super dark. Like waaayy dark. I actually had trouble sleeping last night because of it. Read at own risk. Unfortunately, it makes sense to their story location etc...

Part 2: I've noticed through my time of browsing other fanfictions, some authors bribe their readers. Like for instance you give so and so reviews you get a faster update. I want you guys to review because you want too, not because you feel inclined too. You won't hear me requesting for them anymore as well. Also I have a LOT of ghost viewers out there like 1075 or something like that? So shout out to my ghosts who click on the story! Trust me I'm a ghoster too LOL I was since high school up until recently. Just got out of midterm for Japanese 1! So lets pray I pass that. On another note, I have another story going around in my head so keep an eye out for it. I'm not sure if I'll start that after I finish TLDE or before. It depends on how strong the story nags at me.

Now onward to chapter 9!

Disclaimer: Fairy Tail owns me, not the other way around.

* * *

Chapter 9- Scents Tell Tales

Something wasn't right. He knew it. Despite all the leather crowding up sinuses, he got a whiff of…something weird. He was unable to pick it up beforehand due to his team's stench (before they bathed) and the village smothered out anything distinctive; because all the huts were draped in different hides in kept and unkempt conditions.

Now he was separated from the village surrounded by soldiers' day in and day out, when the wind picked up the smell of an odd combination of scents. What he thought was weird was, of course he would pick up different smells, everyone has a different scent. He didn't think anything of it yesterday.

They were on day two though…General Scillio came to greet them just outside the dining tent; in a giant military encampment away from the other huts with animal hides, for breakfast. The tent was made of an old thick leather tarp with wooden tables, a dirt flooring and oak benches, supported by sturdy green wooden poles like a tepee; with a double flap for an entrance. The place was a little smaller than the first floor to a mansion.

He smelled it clearly then, it was a very distinct concoction of perfumes, oils and lotions mingled together in a heavy mixture. This put his mind in such a conundrum that he almost tore his own hair out. What made him so unnerved was all of them, soldiers included, smelled exactly like General Scillio.

"I DON'T GET IT! Why do they all smell the same?! Wendy I think my nose is broken. Fix it…"

"I think…I know what you're talking about, all this leather is making me stuffy."

Natsu and Wendy decided to take a walk away from everyone for a while because all the different scents overwhelmed both of them.

Scratching the back of his head fussed to his little dragon kin. "Ahhh great… Your nose is stuffed up and mine is broken."

She clutched Charlie close to her chest while they walked and gazed at Natsu inquisitively. "What exactly are you smelling?"

"The exact same scent on everyone in the military. What I really don't get is their army is bigger than the village put together by at least over 20. Which doesn't make any sense, to the smell OR their numbers. " His mind exhausted itself as he awkwardly stomped about trying to cause a fight with air. "UUUGGGGGRRRRR I HATE PUZZLES!"

Wendy just gave him a glance of sympathy. "I see your confusion."

Recovering from the tantrum addressed their counterparts in hopes of any insight he could get. Hell if they told him he was smelling unicorns he would be happy. "Did you two pick up anything bizarre?"

"All this leather is making me sick…" Happy flopped on top of mottled pink hair from the excessive wind.

A fuzzy white head peered up at Wendy, comfortable and safe within her arms. "I cannot say any different. I definitely can say I won't be sorry to leave this stop."

Natsu got quiet after a while drifting back to last night with Lucy. His heart, he remembered, burned unusually. Hearing her cry in that way felt like Acnologia himself gutted him. He never experienced something quite like that sensation. It was different from when his dad died, it was worse than when he thought Lisanna had passed. What made it more unbearable was he didn't want to know the reason behind those tears, because he had a hunch it was his fault. He woke up with her laying on top of his torso and resisted a very tempting urge that caught him off guard. When he saw the celestial mage all intertwined with him, all he wanted to do was roll her over and…

"..tsu…"

"…Natsu…"

"NATSU!"

His head jolted up as Happy fell off. "Huh?"

"I've been calling you for a bit, you okay?"

"Yeah. What is it?"

She pointed to the field grounds factually. "We're back at camp."

Natsu, Wendy, Happy and Charle groaned in unison at the thought of stepping foot into their new found, temporary leather hellhole.

 ** _:*:_**

A fairly tall broad frame, chiseled to perfection with a couple of scars paced about alone in their quarters. The others left to go eat lunch while he stood there contemplative, determined to figure out the mystery of the militia.

It was weird. Natsu started to smell the soldiers with every chance he got no matter if he was with the team or not, and when he came close to the general, took extra special care to subtly breathe in extra deep. He was finally able to pick up something that he was unable too before.

The faint smell of soybean oil, almond oil, lavender oil, jojoba oil, flaxseed oil with a sickly sweet under layer of lily lotion. The only way he could explain it was that each had a different scent code. His nose definitely became more acute over the past three years.

He felt of course he would smell oils and lotions, it helps people from being God awful stinky sometimes. Though he noticed the General's lotions and oils smelled more expensive. Out of pure curiosity he stopped and smelled everything in their hut. The leather here didn't smell like that. It smelled like normal animal hide.

Pacing more, got agitated. "What am I missing here…"

His pink head had a pensive expression as he placed his right hand over his chin and mouth hating to think so damn much, but he just needed to figure it out.

 ** _:*:_**

All day she noticed Natsu acting odd. Thinking it was just herself questioned if the others noticed. They had. He was smelling the guards and General Scillio while keeping a quiet demeanor. Other times he made it very obvious. Like for instance, they were walking back when the fire mage suddenly started to be extremely complimentary to different foot soldiers' on how awesome they smelled (with a giant intake of breath) and went with them for a drink just as if they were long lost pals.

Lucy decided against exploring with the others, and opted for a chance to speak with fire incarnate alone.

Natsu decided he had enough pacing and leaned back on one arm while the other was propped up over his knee as he enjoyed the feel of their bedding.

Crossing arms over her chest while resting weight on her right leg, began the fated interrogation. "All right, what's up?"

Glancing in the direction of the woman, looked away while having a perturbed attitude. 'Did she notice?' "Nothing. Why."

"Don't give me that, we've all noticed you smelling everything in sight."

Shit, they did notice. "It's nothing to be concerned with. I don't even know the answer yet. So trust me, that I trust you, to trust me."

There he went in his circles again. Popping her left hip out and placed both hands on her hips, decided she was not up for his bullshit. "Just tell me what's going on and why you're smelling everything."

Natsu's head snapped in the blonde's direction, aggravated with himself and this weird ass predicament. "Damn it Lucy, I said to not worry about it."

The air became tense. "Fine be that way." Storming out, left him to his devices.

That was not how he wanted it to go, moving from his comfortable spot stormed out after her. "Wait…Luce I-"

He saw it. The soldiers were carrying one of their men who had died on a mission. However a huge wave of the oils and lotion General Scillio carried on him, thwacked into his nose almost causing Natsu to double over from nausea. Deciding to bother them a bit cracked his knuckles, ready to find out what the fuck is up with this place.

Lucy, in having heard her name from his lips, turned to see the man walking towards a bunch of soldiers carrying a dead guy. The field was wide and open with the village a bit further north west of where the military camp was located. However it was not so far she still couldn't see it. The soldiers seemed to be coming from the village gate and had been walking for some time already when Natsu inquired of their activities.

Despite the strange combination of smells, picked up on Lucy's own scent not far from him. Placing his weight to the right leg, kept a very relaxed atmosphere while he crossed his arms leaning over to get a better view. "What happened to him?"

The soldiers looked at each other hesitantly. "Stupid bor got im, fella was daft n'ough to take ii head on. Got em self skeward."

Breathing in deep, sighed as if he could actually feel their plight, the nauseating concoction had been in a weird canister, shaped like a human praying with no discernable features and empty eyes. "Damn boar, am I right?" The wind aided the investigation by picking up early decay and what he guessed was the remnants of the man's original scent (of pine, dirt and clay) unmasked from the leather armor. The dead man was naked too, not covered by any armor, just a leather blanket so old it lost its color

He realized then what was so peculiar. It was the leather armor that smelled like all those oils and hint of lotion.

The six gentlemen carrying their dead, laughed abashedly. One agreed with the pink haired man. "Aye, tis rite yew are. Damn bor and daft fool they both be!" Holding up the enormous brindle colored boar, proclaimed proudly showing where the tusks met their comrade's gullet. "Tho we got dinnar ta nite!"

Natsu chuckled with them. "Looks good for a meal! See ya round guys." He waved them off and hurriedly went towards Lucy whispering in her ear as he turned her around. He took her wrists in his hands and pushed her to walk forward with her back against his torso.

"Wha-?"

"Just keep moving, I think I almost cracked it."

Selfishly enjoying his touch, leaned into him. "I still have no idea what you've been on about."

That didn't go unnoticed and he tightened his grip to press her closer to his body. "What did I say about trusting me?"

A huge case of butterflies ran around in her stomach, taken off guard at his actions. "If you say so?" Lucy was beyond confused at this point.

 ** _:*:_**

It was after dinner when twilight touched the wheat fields in every direction with an unparalleled glow of fading out oranges, reds, pinks and purples trading in for dark blues, indigo, greys and hues of deep blacks. As the night moved forward, the crescent moon complimented stars that littered the sky where galaxies intermingled with every constellation possible, revealing galactic shades similar to a scattered rainbow turned into dust; then stretched out like a ribbon weaving around each flicker. The temperature kept dropping till it finally reached no higher than fifty degrees. Much to their surprise with gasps of adoration and elation, as an asteroid shower graced through the milky-way.

You could find Team Natsu out laying down, or sitting up enjoying the view. One of the few benefits of travel had been the sights to each location and how the atmosphere worked against or with the terrain. They could all agree though, Windsor Valley must have been the most beautiful they have ever seen.

Comfortable silence encased all of them, there was no need for words or problems just them cozied up next to one another keeping warm. Nobody dared to even ask for Natsu's fire in fear of losing their perfect view. At this point they managed to get all of their things back from this strange village so they were able to wear their normal clothes all mended up, better than when it was bought in the first place.

They couldn't have been happier. However if it could even be possible the temperature dropped further than it was, so everyone decided to get back to their hut.

 _ **:*:**_

Much to his chagrin he found himself sleeping next to Lucy once more. It wasn't that he didn't like it. Just the opposite, however he found himself struggling with all his might against all of these recent impulses. Though some he just couldn't fight back, for instance earlier today when he instinctively pressed her closer.

Which is how he ended up spooning with her, again.

Laying on her side turned towards him half asleep not suspecting Natsu to cuddle with her again so soon. Yeah he did it all the time when at her apartment, but lately its felt… different. The way he touched her, she noticed drowsily, no longer felt like he was touching her out of a simple desire to cuddle a friend. "Hmm…Natsu?"

He shushed her while lifting their quilt to settle in. "Go back to sleep." His deep voice was soft and low enough for only her to hear.

Smiling at him made a tired comment that would never have been made while awake; so it was mumbled and almost intelligible. "It…it's" yawn "It's k, I…I like feeling you against…" yawn "me…" sleep overtook her instantly afterwards.

Natsu understood it, and pulled her closer melding alongside the blonde's figure. If that was the case, he would sleep next to her every night, other impulses be damned. Knowing full well she wasn't aware, responded. "I like feeling ya too Luce..." Along with this village's mystery he was close to figuring out why he suddenly had these desires. For now, till things were clear, he settled on simply laying with her every night.

 _ **:*:**_

There was a squelching noise a bit a ways from their tent, sometimes it sucked having sharp hearing. Wendy was already awake when Natsu's eyes flicked open. Much to his displeasure, he had to untangle himself from the sleeping woman in his arms. He soundlessly mouthed to their youngest while using his arm to sit up. " _You heard that right?_ "

A nod from her head of long blue messy hair from sleep, had been her reply.

Placing an index finger to his lips, held a hand out for Wendy to stand her ground in case anything happened. Stepping towards their entrance heard the squelching noise again. The night air bit his nose as if it was snowing, he had to blink a few times to make sure it really wasn't.

Following the noise saw shadows move against one of the huts that had been in the outskirts of the encampment. It was heavily guarded, he noted that General Scillio's enormous frame had indeed been one of the occupants. There were two other shadows in the hut as Natsu's head stealthily peaked around to see what was going on careful not to be spotted.

There were two men, taking turns raising a body and seemingly stripping the skin off it, and the sound of each disgusting rip reverberated into the dragon's ears as the smells of those oils and lotion flooded his nose sickeningly.

He threw up silently, then ran back to their quarters.

 _ **:*:**_

Wendy saw the look on his face and tilted her head in concern.

"Everyone up, _now_."

Natsu began to grab their things and push everyone in their sleepy state right side up.

Gray rubbed his eyes exasperatingly. "What the hell is your problem?"

Busying himself with packing exclaimed. "No time to explain, I'll tell you when we get far, far faaaaar away from here." He was never one to run, in this case he felt it was better tactically to get the hell out of dodge for all their sakes and their skins. It's not like they couldn't take on an entire army. Hell in the war they fought against all odds, however he didn't want to even stay and attempt a fight at the moment, the sheer revulsion took the fight out of him and made a face that showed it. "Let's just hope they didn't realize I saw…"

Charle, Wendy and Happy looked at each other nervously. Wendy held her nose as a strong whiff came downwind from where Natsu had just come from. "That…that's horrid…"

His dragon eyes went wide as pupils narrowed instructing his kin. "Wendy don't breathe it in, don't think about it. We're supposed to leave around now anyway."

Shaking her shoulders, attempted to wake his personal conundrum. "Lucy…Lucy get up."

"Natsu, wha…?"

"No time, let's get moving."

"Natsu if you don't tell us what's going on this instant with your nonsense, I will personally end you…" Erza was not a morning person, she definitely didn't want to be disturbed from a pleasant dream she was having, only to be thrust right up with the rude awakening assisted by the cold.

His first instinct was to back down, but the memory of what he recently witnessed pushed any knee jerk reaction to the fiery woman away. "Sorry Erza we have to leave. I'll tell you all everything later, but _**not here**_."

This had the red head's attention, Natsu was standing his ground against her. This only happens when things were serious. "Alright we'll pack and head out."

 _ **:*:**_

They acted as natural as possible, nobody made a twitch or a sound that could determine they possibly knew something that they shouldn't. That didn't keep the sensation of walking on needles with their bare feet away. Each guard they passed waved at them knowing that the team kept up with their bargain and let them pass quietly.

Till they got through to the other side, nearly home free.

"Old ii rite tha." General Scillio walked up towards them and leaned over, much like a father would scolding his children. "Ye leavin wit out sayin goo bai laddies?"

The team released a breath and smiled as they each gave him there farewells. Natsu stood back while keeping a hard stare on the man, suddenly feeling extremely protective of one individual who decided to speak to the General herself. His broad frame walked over and placed a hand on her lower back as she stood in front of Scillio.

"Thank you for your kindness sir."

"Aww tis arite lil blonde lassy. Stay safe." He grinned his biggest grin for her, in return he heard the sleepiest laugh imaginable which made him quietly chuckle. That's when General Scillio noticed the look in the dragon's eyes, and realized that Natsu knew. Shaking his head no, nodded over to the pass that would get them to the ruins. He was going to let them leave, the village greeted them just in time to give the others the promised provisions so they could do just that.

Natsu still had his hand on Lucy's lower back, feeling her relax into his touch. He tilted his head towards her and gave a no nonsense expression. "Lucy…lets go."

With that they left.

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A/N: I HAVE A COUPLE OF REVIEWS! You guys rock sox so much :D Oh and I already have chapter 10 written. However I'm not posting it just yet till I have chapter 11 done. I generally write these two at a time. Though when I originally posted the story I posted I think the first five chapters in the same day and they've been edited since. So if you want to go back and see what's changed you are more than welcome.

 **MThereze:** I'm so happy you enjoyed the last chapter and felt like you were going on a journey with them. I finally got the rust out so this story has been smooth sailing since. LOL

 **Glass Dragon's Rose:** I know we started a conversation, I thought my last one sent but I'm now not so certain. I'm more than happy to respond, I've noticed throughout the years fanfiction brings others together in the most unexpected ways, because stories about characters we can relate too have touched us in some positive way. I know it has for me many times with different Inuyasha stories and other fanfictions I've read. So kudos to a fellow spirit touched by other's stories. *fist bump*


	10. Chapter 10-Retribution

A/N: So I posted chapter 10 sooner than I thought. I was so excited about how it turned out I wanted to share. Also my editor reviewed it and as long as I don't throw smut in here or graphic lemons *cough* which I'm not sure I won't do...it will stay T. So I switched the rating back. Also I figured out an attractive chapter break! YAAAY The stupid " _ **SsS"**_ are no more. I am now using " _ **::*::"**_ which is very similar to my breaks in Microsoft Word. If you're reading this then you'll see the shift I believe in either chapter 8 or 9...

Disclaimer: There's really got to be more than one way of saying it. I really don't own Fairy Tail.

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Chapter 10-Retribution

"I can't believe after all of that, you dragged us back here…" Gray was laying on his stomach similar to an army crawl while he and Natsu watched the guards go back and forth, in front of the encampment they left not twenty minutes ago. He almost couldn't believe it when he heard what the fire mage saw, he also knew that the dragon wouldn't make it up either.

"Shut up, do you want them to see us?" He so very badly wanted to go in there burn everything up. He also knew that they needed some sort of plan. "There I got the pattern, let's go back to the others…"

 _ **::*::**_

A bit a ways away Wendy, Erza, Lucy, Happy and Charle waited patiently for them.

Erza moved forward with arms crossed. "Well?"

Natsu looked directly to her eyes. "They switch guards every five minutes. Within that five minutes there is a one minute window where nobody is watchin'."

"That's our opportunity. All three of us will go in." To do what exactly? Cause mayhem, she and Natsu both wanted to burn their labs to cinders.

"You three, what about Wendy, Charle, Happy and I? You really think I'm going to let you walk in there without us as backup? Hell no!" Lucy wasn't happy, nor should she be. Despite what her fire mage witnessed she wanted part in turning everything upside down and inside out. On her own she could level a town with Taurus's star dress.

Natsu breathed in a sigh knowing this was not going to be easy to convince her to stay put. Lately his draconic instinct to protect the celestial mage had been in overdrive. "Lucy…I want you nowhere near this. Stay here with Wendy and the others." Stepping close, towered two heads over her with his own arms crossed. "That's final."

She felt something in her snap and gave him a hard stare, completely unaffected by his height or the edge of finality in his words. "Who do you think you are to order me like that?"

The both of them forgot they had onlookers, who stepped away cautiously in anticipation for the blow up.

 _ **::*::**_

Gray leaned in to Erza, "How much you wanna bet Lucy will win?"

"10000 jewels."

"Heh you're on, I'll make that 15000 in Lucy's favor. Want in Wendy?"

Cocking her blue head dawned a sneaky grin. "What's the bet at?"

Smirking at her responded. "25000 for Lucy's win."

"Make it 12000 in favor for Natsu."

"Natsu eh? Risky choice…" He pulled out a bag as everyone threw in their pot.

"Wha, I want in too!" Happy sat down practically invisible due to the tall wheat grass. The only way you could tell he was there was his blue fur. Raising a paw placed his bet. "I bet 5 fish!"

"Happy this is for jewels not fish, I up the bet another 10000 in favor of Natsu." Charle seemed rather pleased with herself at her bet. Her reasoning was that Natsu was beginning to realize his love for the girl, and from what she knew of Wendy a dragon slayer's instincts to protect their friends was strong. However from speaking with Panther Lily, nothing compared to a dragon protecting his mate. Gajeel proved it time and time again with Levy during the war.

He bounced the blue velvet pouch up and down in his hand and caught it in midair. "One of us will be rich with 47000 jewels tonight!"

 _ **::*::**_

The two did not hear what mischief their nakama was up too in the background, since they were out of a dragon's earshot but not out of eyesight.

Natsu leaned in with his hands at his hips. "I don't want you near it."

"And you have no right to make decisions for me." She puffed up her chest with her own hands at her hips."

He leaned in closer aggressively. "I'm not letting you get hurt."

"I've been hurt, more times than I can count. What's another scar, this isn't any different than what we've been through already!" Her face was barely a few centimeters close to his as their argument heated up.

"This is hugely different! I don't want you around this kind of fight. I don't want you around that place at all." He couldn't exactly word it correctly as to why he was so hell bent on not letting her near this battle. He figured it was because he wanted to protect Lucy from that type of horror, and so soon after the whole Onsen ordeal it was almost too much for him. "I won't be able to focus, if I have to worry about you getting into trouble every ten seconds."

That stung. "Since when have I been a distraction?!" She waved her arms out like she just took a hit.

 _ **::*::**_

"Natsu really isn't backing down, I think our jewels are in trouble."

Dark brown eyes gave Gray a side glance while standing comfortably in her soft clothes. "Don't discount her yet, Lucy is not a force to be reckoned with."

 ** _::*::_**

He had to step back a bit to stop his head from counting all the times he had to save her ass and honestly couldn't believe she asked such a dumb question. His face showed it. "Just let me handle this one and stay here with the others…"

Crossing her arms gave that steely gaze like she did in the infirmary. "No."

He had to remember to breathe in and out as he stared at her then rubbed his hand through his hair stressed then came close in on her again, using his index finger to make his point clear. "Damn it Lucy, listen to me this one fucking time."

"Why?" They've always gone through every fight together, no matter how deadly it was. This would be nothing compared to the war they fought. It couldn't even hold a candle, so why wouldn't he let her in on it? Especially when she can fight.

"Because I don't want you to see it!" He was exasperated, their arguments have been more frequent and her stubbornness matched his almost to a "T".

"I think I can handle it, I'm not a child. No matter what you say I'm go-…"

There deep within his stomach, fire burned with a sudden impulse and he understood it was his only solution; by grabbing both sides of her head to crash his lips to hers.

She went rigid, completely flabbergasted at the sudden action.

He pulled away almost too soon and lowered his head, with a heady tired sigh against the blonde's forehead. "Stay here." He walked away with a proud stride as Lucy seemed to be cemented in place. That was his second time to kiss Lucy. He wasn't going to deny that he really did want more of it.

 _ **::*::**_

Gray and Erza stood there shell-shocked. Natsu won the argument in one of the most unexpected ways, especially for the fire mage. Before his pink head got closer, he subtly tossed the jewel purse to Wendy.

Natsu walked right passed them in the direction of the village, stopped and tilted his head ever so slightly without actually looking back. "Let's go." Then silently moved on as his tunic and scaled white scarf fluttered in the wind against the straw behind him.

This wasn't going to be pleasant.

 _ **::*::**_

A thick icy fog settled in around the village, with as cold as it was nobody was really surprised at the sudden change. This happened every once in a while. The fog descended through, blanketing over the entire area from the military encampment to the village. Three lone figures walked in amongst it, as they approached the hut where they prepped the leather.

Slit pupils surrounded by reddish gold eyes that glowed with fury, skimmed across the target zone as a spark escaped from the corner of his lips; almost as though he swallowed the sun and plasmatic tendrils sought for an escape.

 _ **::*::**_

Lucy wanted to murder him. In her opinion you don't kiss people to win an argument. Wendy approached her person not long after the others left wondering if she was doing alright.

In her own mind, no. No she wasn't alright, she wanted retribution against Natsu. Unfortunately somehow someway that stupid kiss, got her to sit down and wait with Wendy begrudgingly.

Next thing they knew was an explosion breaking through the deathly quiet field. The two girls stood as if their eyes witnessed Armageddon far in the distance, coming from the direction of the military camp.

 _ **::*::**_

Ice covered over every fire after each "lab" was turned into nothing but cinders, extinguishing it.

A sword's deathly shine reflected the scene being created, daring anyone to defy its blade.

Fire licked against his feet as he walked, blowing every military hut with that disgusting smell into absolute desolation. His center gravity was perfect as each foot fall was practically a glide, silent and steady.

The chill in the air made it extraordinarily difficult to breath, putting most asleep as they continued on their war path.

Red hair trailed about as they pressed onward.

 _ **::*::**_

General Scillio ran with his entire army in tow fearing the worst. They all retired for the night when the "outskirts" of their encampment suddenly went up in flames. He wasn't daft, he understood the power their visitors had. He also knew the one with pink hair figured out the village secret. The only thing that could be done, was reasoning since he didn't hold any magic. He could fight with the best of them in hand to hand combat, but against these monsters the village would ultimately meet its ending. He just hoped he could explain their position in time before they harmed the villagers.

 _ **::*::**_

A fire encased fist punched the floor as the earth erupted from the sheer strength, bending to its antagonists whims. The crack went directly towards General Scillio's hut before it stopped, almost like a golem obeying its master saying that they were here, and they weren't happy.

 _ **::*::**_

Said General paused when he heard the earth crack in the direction of his place, he told everyone to protect the village as he took off at a running sprint to where he was certain to find them.

 _ **::*::**_

There they were in his hut, only three of them. It took him a minute to register only three caused so much damage within minutes. Their frames stood tall, as if they commanded the very air General Scillio breathed, giving him an image that they were unstoppable.

He dragged a hand through his deep maroon hair as he shook his head. "Aiigt ye ain't pleased. Tis no mai wish tha iits done. It's the chief. Now me I kno betar. Don mistake ii. Mi plannen to dethrone the chief n take ovar n stop this harrid, centaries ol' practice. Jus I beg ye, leave da village alone. They don kno wha we do en our ranks, thay still think ii be animal hide. All tha leathar ye saw in da village is imported, we get ii an make it for different cities."

The three of them looked to each other, in a silent conversation General Scillio would never hope to understand. The center one with pink hair stepped in front and squared off with him sporting a giant boyish grin like he had no care in the world.

The dark one with sharp eyes moved too quickly for him to catch as the same thick fog encased them, as if the sky fell just within his hut. It cleared after a few minutes and they were gone. Leaving him standing there feeling like he was an idiot. He got their message straight, fix your ways… or else.

 _ **::*::**_

The sun rose pleasantly as three people came to where they left their friends, and smiled at the sight. Lucy, Wendy, Charle and Happy curled together within the wheat grass underneath a very thick blanket given to them by the village. It was not human skin or animal hide; but very bright colorful soft cotton with patterns of wheat and pictures of the villagers sewing, or doing various activities. On the market it would be worth a couple thousand Jewels. The fire mage had to hand it to them, they really were talented despite their messed up military.

When Natsu decided to pull the blanket off of all four of them, it earned him a really grumpy reaction. He grinned like he did nothing wrong as Lucy swatted at him holding Happy to her chest, while Wendy flinched inward crushing Charle attempting to escape the bite of early morning. He guffawed freely as he helped Lucy up, then his littlest kin with her Exceed.

 _ **::*::**_

General Scillio took all morning to survey the damage when he realized that the only things that were obliterated had been the "labs" and their ancient libraries in the medical wing thanks to those misfits. If nothing else, they were thorough. One of his men came up to him breathlessly after a run saying nobody in the village was hurt, there wasn't a scratch on any of the guards. With this joyous news he laughed hardily.

The sky lit up with the softest baby yellow, as the sun's golden rays touched each blade of wheat grass as the dew that was temporarily frozen, thawed and trickled down the stems. Warmth coated over the land with fresh, air renewed from the night as the sleepy village awoke to begin a new day.

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AN: No new favorites or follows to give a shout out too, (which is absolutely okay) but I have one Review!

 **Glass Dragon's Rose:** I know right? *shudders* soo creepy bleeh LOL


	11. Chapter 11-The Aid

A/N: So somehow I ended up updating Tale of Two Lovers over TLDE. Which is really interesting since this one was first lol I've been slowly working on it. As I get inspiration etc. Sorry this took so long guys and HOLY SMOKES thank you for all the favorites for both stories. You guys are awesome! I hope you enjoy it!

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Chapter 11- The Aid

It took three weeks of travel for them to reach the ends of Earthland and into a city relatively close to Finreal Ruins. During this time, conversation became scarce between Natsu and Lucy, both unwilling to talk about the fact he kissed her to win an argument. Their tension made everyone else incredibly antsy.

Erza located them a room they could share, placing the girls on one bed and the boys on the other. Their room was small for their number with two twin beds, a night stand next to each one and a primitive lacrima teleprompter on top of a worn table. Though they decided to sleep together on the floor instead. The carpet was rough with age, fading from a rich blue to grey, a dirty yellow curtain torn from over use fluttered in with the hot wind, since nobody closed the window.

As night drew on, a mugging occurred down the street where their hotel was located. High humidity made it miserable for everyone. Grey stripped naked in his sleep sprawling out over everyone just to cool down. Erza, Lucy and Wendy slept in their underwear, while Natsu stayed in his boxers.

"Hey Happy...?"

Zero response.

"Tch…" Why was he even awake, heat doesn't bother him so what was? So he tried the next person on his list.

"Psst..Grey?"

"Whaaaatttt is it, isn't it enough that I'm boiling up? I don't need you in my ear too…"

"It's about Lucy…" He left those three words hang in the air, figuring out in that instant it was her who kept his mind running.

That was the last thing Grey expected. "Alright let's step outside."

 _::***::_

Grey didn't bother dressing and leaned against the entrance to the hotel, as he absorbed everything Natsu was telling him. Once the fire mage finished, he laughed for all he was worth pointing and holding his sides. "You got it real bad ya know that?" Patting Natsu's shoulder gave a knowing grin. "I'm going to tell it to you straight, with this one, you are on your own. It should be obvious, but the fact that you are so oblivious to it amuses the hell out of me. I mean…I knew you were stupid, but…" he chuckled and started to pound the wall a bit before continuing, "you're stupider than I thought!" He calmed down long enough to continue. "You'll be fine Natsu, you aren't sick and you aren't catching some weird crazy flu. It happens at least once to most everyone."

In the middle of their conversation a person screamed down the dark alleyway, due to a mugger that was on the prowl. Trash blew around their feet, falling into the gutter with an almost ominous wind.

"Hey wanna blow off some steam?"

Natsu grinned delightedly at the offer and lit his fist up. "Sounds good."

 _::***::_

 _Meanwhile back at Fairy Tail Headquarters, 12 hours behind during midday…._

"You really want to join Fairy Tail that badly…?" Markarov stroked his beard while in his wheelchair deep in thought. _'If I send him on their mission, it might move Natsu a bit...then again I know nothing about this fellow.'_ A very wide smile full of teeth came with his reply. "Go see Mirajane by the bar, she'll set you up." Rolling away gave a sneaky laugh under his breath, then went to his room with the lacrima communicator and shouted into it as loud as he could.

 _::***::_

Erza was the first to groggily punch the cellular type device from its vibrating, as Markarov's voice bulldozed through the entire room like a drill sergeant, "WHERE ARE YOU LOT?!"

She was going to kill him, her hair looked as though a raccoon nested when their beloved guild master appeared on screen. Whisper yelling is difficult and stressful on the vocal cords. "Do you have any idea what time it is here, we have a long journey still ahead of us and people are trying to sleep!"

::***::

Pushing his wheels to slightly face the warm sunlight streaming through his window nodded his head tiredly. "Yes, yes, that's all well and good, you're far if the time is that different there…can you send me the exact coordinates of your location?" A few beeps and some pushing later revealed a map and to his horror, underestimated the travel time it would take a certain someone to catch up. "That's….in the middle of almost nowhere."

Erza's muffled voice came through on his end, "Yes, we are hot on this old map's trail, the next clue is somewhere in the ruins close to this desert city."

Relief flooded through old bones at hearing the word "city". Where there's a city, there's most undoubtedly a train station. With some connections he could get their new member there within…

::***::

All the requip mage saw, was the old man go ghostly white and blue in the face at her report."Master?" Only to eventually breath and go back to normal.

::***::

He fished for a decent enough excuse… "Ah, can you stay there for a month or two longer? I'm sending someone your way with extra provisions." Maybe that'll sound reasonable enough.

He should have known better when Erza's voice, on the other end, retorted flatly. "You've never done that before." In the background he could see Lucy and Wendy squeezed themselves as close to Erza as possible to get in on the conversation; with their own hair looking just as bedraggled, while waving tiredly.

He felt an invisible hammer hit the nail on his poor head with her clipped remark. It wouldn't be long before she figures out that he's up to something. It would ruin everything if Erza found out. "Consider this a one-time exception; hi ladies faring well?" His response was a duel head drop with a thumbs up. "I see, well try to get some sleep and don't move from that spot till your aid gets there!"

::***::

"Yes Master, I'll let them know." With that, all parties hung up, the girls looked to their eldest sister figure quizzically while all lounging about on top of their pillows and blankets. Erza's response was a shrug and a shake of the head nearly just a confused as they were. However, tiredness beat confusion as they fell back asleep minutes after the conversation.

 _::***::_

Natsu and Grey showed up much later drunk with the mugger that they "had words with" earlier. They landed on top of the twin bed closest to the door, which is where Happy and Charlie decided to sleep, instead of the floor with everyone else.

"WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH" Which woke up Charlie only for her to see him lunging forward straight into Wendy, who also got startled and knocked heads with Lucy, which then caused Lucy to accidentally kick Erza. All three girls were continuously knocking into each other trying to get out of the reasonably comfortable pretzel they managed to get themselves in, hurriedly out of shock to get battle ready against the loud disturbance. After positioning themselves looked to see the scene.

They were pissed, grabbing up the stranger Natsu and Grey all together almost like dirty laundry, shoved them out the window. Erza locked the front door and the window to keep from any chance of them coming back up.

Though be it a kindness of sorts, a few minutes later Grey's clothes fly out the window landing on his head since he and Natsu decided to sleep closest to the wall nearest to their room.

"This sucks ba-"

Natsu punches him while in mid-sentence.

 _::***::_

Living dead would be an understatement, his body can handle being absolutely broken, killed, brought back to life, stabbed in the gut etc. But for whatever reason the dust in this shitty part of the city caused him to have hay fever. It sucked worse than dying.

"Uuuugggghhhhh….."

Charle adjusted her pack while in human form as she turned to assess Natsu's condition. "Wendy, can you do something about this? I mean, I've seen him in physical distress but I've never seen him… _sick…_ it's bizarre."

"Yeah! Be still Natsu."

He pleasantly obeyed the younger girl by leaning down, as she placed her delicate and somehow still soft hands against both sides on his temples, allowing her magic waft over him.

"There that should do it. It'll go away in three days, if I hadn't done anything you could have been stuck like that for a while. Hay fever for normal mages will last twenty-four hours, but unfortunately for us dragons it can last anywhere between a week to three weeks depending on the severity."

"Fan hew Hendee…wuff gung on againe?"

"For whatever reason the Master wants us to stay here for two months to wait for "help". Honestly, I think he's up to something. He's never done this before, but it's the Master's wishes. We can't stay in a hotel that long, so we are making more suitable arrangements for our extended stay."

"Maish sinse…"

"Do you know where to go for that kind of arrangement?"

"Fear not Grey, I asked the servants at the hotel. They suggested a house we could rent out for a monthly fee and there's plenty of jobs in the area needing mages. It seems that mages are rare around here, so everyone is in desperate need. It turns out that it was only fifteen minutes on foot from Hotel Barge."

Tilting her blue haired head to look up, addressed their leader. "Did they at least give you a name, or how big it is, or if there's a kitchen?"

"Well, no I figured we'd find all that out when we get there. I'm sure as long as we're together we'll manage, no matter the condition of our place of stay."

"As long as there's fish, I don't care where we stay."

"Simpleton..."

"Charle, you're cuter as a cat."

"I just hope it has air conditioning, I'm tired of this heat…"

Natsu heard that comment, then grinned impishly. "I can delp wiff dat, yu haben't belt hot yed." He ran up to Lucy in his sickly glory and held her tight, raising his body temperature.

"AAAAUUGGGHHH NATSU!" She felt like lava was hitting her skin, and not in a good way. "GET OFF A ME!" To which she punched him.

He just laughed finding it the most amusing thing all day.

Erza broke up the banter realizing they arrived at their location. It wasn't what they expected, though it never is. Fortunately, in this case it was better than they hoped for. The sign made it obvious this is what the workers at Barge had been talking about. There was a main building with a sign that read "BARGE HOMES FOR RENT" behind the building had been a bunch of houses in various sizes. It looked like an entire community.

"I believe, this will do. Wait here as I get us something accommodating."

 _::***::_

The others had been sitting board for at least an hour now encroaching on the second hour, Grey laid down since he felt like his face would melt off, Natsu was too sick to care and joined alongside Grey. Lucy, Wendy, Happy and Charlie played pebble catch by flicking a pebble back and forth to each other.

"Good news we have an arrangement. Its three-bedroom, two-bath and yes it does have a kitchen. They're working on electricity now." Erza saw their disinterest at the news figuring it would be another hell hole. Exasperated at their lack of attention spoke, "It has air conditioning…" That worked better than she thought; because five of them bolted for the entrance gate like their lives depended on it. The only one who wasn't "running for gold" was Natsu, who she noted just dragged himself like the walking dead. Taking pity on him picked him up like he was a foot-ball and walked to where their house would be.

Natsu didn't care, he just wanted this dragon's hay fever to be gone.

 _::**::_

The house was decent, the gate to the place wasn't a front or a sham. The interior of the house was well built with concrete, a low roof to keep things cool, moderate spacing, a functioning kitchen and a small living-room. Plus, the entire house was already furnished with the necessities. It seems the agency who owned these small houses had frequent cases like theirs, though its little to no surprise, when you're the only city within the desert for thousands of miles.

"Habby nd I sweep on da couch." No sooner did he speak, when they found him already unconscious with Happy curled against his stomach.

Grey chuckled victoriously, "Sweet I get the bedroom all to myself. No complaints here."

"Fair enough, Wendy would you rather bunk with Lucy or myself."

"Hmmmm, no offense to you Lucy but….you have a tendency to toss in your sleep. It's not uncommon for you to kick sometimes too. I think I'll bunk with Erza."

"On that note I myself will stay out here with Happy and Natsu, after Wendy used her magic, I would like to monitor Natsu for a bit out here. I'll just stay in my cat form at his feet. All three of us can share a blanket."

"That's not like you Charle, you usually don't like straying far from me."

"I'm aware, I think it would be better for all parties involved concerning space and the size of the beds. I happened to take a look and they are no bigger than a full size. As a cat I can fit near anywhere, but I also want to keep an eye on Natsu as my priority. Hay fever for dragons is not a laughing matter. I need to make sure his condition doesn't worsen."

"We can't argue with that, alright here are the agreed arrangements: Natsu, Happy and Charlie will be on the couch, Grey has his own room, Wendy and I will bunk together and Lucy has her own space. We'll begin unpacking immediately."


	12. Chapter 12-Heathen's Island

A/N: Hello Everyone, I somehow had time to write a chapter for TLDE! I don't know if I can keep this up but I'll do my best. The next I'll say two chapters are I guess "filler" to make the story flow better. Kind of like mini adventures within the time they have to wait. I've also gotten so many new followers again! You guys are so epic! 

**Glass Dragon's Rose:** Thank you for being an avid reader! It brings my heart joy, It's one of my favorite past times. After months of Hiatus I'm happy to return. How are you?

I didn't put a disclaimer in the past chapter so for this and last chapter I don't own FT

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Chapter 12- Heathen's Island

It didn't take long for all parties, except Natsu, to unpack and make a cozy home for the two months it would take for this "aid" to get to them. A couple days after unpacking everyone was bored and boiled over from the erratic temperature conditions that came with being in a desert. At night it can get as frigid as twenty degrees, but during the day the dry heat can go as high to one hundred nine and rising.

Lucy was in one of her bikini-tops and short shorts, while laying on her stomach against the cool tile, whining miserably. "Elsa….is there work we can do? You're resourceful…did you hear anything while talking to the owners in charge of this place?"

Said mage was in no better straits fanning herself, wearing nothing but her bathing-suit while lounging in a black leather loveseat that came with the house. "I'm afraid not, though I wish Master would have picked a better place than a desert…"

Gray walked in from his fith cold shower that afternoon, wrapped in a towel grimacing, "Erza didn't you, ya know…say this place had air-conditioning?"

"Oh yeah! I forgot we turned the heater on because of how cold it gets."

Happy floated by Gray in the hallway like a wilted flower, "I'm on it…" He turned the AC on blast and it gave a break for about 5 seconds till it puttered out and quit working.

Everyone who was awake within the room sweat dropped their heads down in disappointment.

Gray scratched the back of his head, "Well….now what do we do….wait….WENDY!"

At hearing her name peaked around the corner from her and Erza's bedroom doorway. "You called?"

"Can you use some of your wind magic to cool us off?"

Charle was none too happy at overhearing the request from her spot at the end of sleeping Natsu's feet. "Wendy isn't a personal AC unit. Besides if she did as you asked, all it would do would make everything hotter by moving around already warm air…"

"I guess…it was an idea, I don't see you coming up with anything."

"Why don't you find a job and get the supplies to either fix or replace the unit."

Lucy bemoaned the idea. "But Charleee its sooo hoooooottttt."

Erza stopped for a brief pause to give her hand and wrist a break. "Yeah, I agree with her on this one…I have an idea!"

Everyone looked to the crimson haired woman with expectation. Anything was better than what they were suffering.

"We all know its cooler at night, why don't we make night owls of ourselves and find work at night. We sleep during the hottest part of the day and work during the cooler hours. This saves money on electricity and won't be as taxing on our unit."

Gray applauded her verbally. "This is why we let you lead."

::***::

Lucy was dragging her feet and moving as sluggishly as possible. "Are we sure it was a good idea to leave Natsu alone?"

"Are we sure we shouldn't have left you behind? Come on, you're stronger than this Lucy, get a grip and keep pushing forward. Besides Wendy, Charle and Happy are there."

"I'm working on it Gray." In truth she really was, it's just she's not good with extremely hot weather, or extremely cold weather, however on top of cramps she was also feeling nauseated. Just like her first mission with Natsu when she used…."I'm dumb." In the same instant she summoned Horologium.

"I'm in here till we get there- she says."

Gray knocked on the clock man's glass door. "So, you summoned him… there's room for two isn't there?"

"It's too much of a tight fit-she says."

"Erza, Lucy's cheating!"

"I'm not cheating, just using good sense-she says."

Gray looked directly at the odd summon. "Isn't it as hot in there as it is out here?"

"My carrying case is regulated temperature, its neither hot nor cold."

"Tch-Lucky… wish I had a summon like that."

Erza turned around finally unable to ignore the bickering. "Relax, we're here."

The building was titled as oddly as everything else in the town. "JOBS FOR HIRE N'ERE BE A WANTIN'."

"Uuuuuuh Erza…this sounds like a really poorly placed add."

"I agree with Gray-she says."

"Nonsense, it'll be fine."

::**::

Gray looked down at his directions. "So we came out with four jobs. The commission isn't bad between all four of us, Wendy can stay at home and relax, the pay is good here for the simple task they're asking for. As for you Lucy, why did you stay in Horologium the entire time?"

"Felt like it-she says."

"Good thing for you it only took five minutes huh?"

"Shut it-she says, it's a girl thing-she says."

"If you pout harder, your face will end up looking like that."

"Gray stop teasing Lucy, we're almost home."

"Times up!" With that Horologium popped out as easily as he was summoned.

Once inside they gave everyone who was left behind the report. They all started at eight in the evening and came home five in the morning, fortunately they also worked at the same bar called "Heathens Paradise." As they got more familiar with the city it became clear to them it was closer to a nicer version of a slum where a lot of riffraff tend to cumulate.

"I'm ba dounser? Kol…" Natsu was still stuffed up from hay fever, much like what Wendy predicted.

Lucy sat herself on the armrest close to Natsu's head. "Yeah, Erza and I will work as bartenders and waitresses depending on how busy or slow it gets, Gray will be working next to you as a bouncer." Deciding it was an uncomfortable position, asked Natsu to sit up so he could lay his head in her lap instead.

"Ven do dee stard?" Natsu was falling back asleep under the lull of Lucy's scent, it also helped that she was playing with his pink hair.

"We start tonight, I'm afraid. Will you be up for it?

"Gonda hafta be." He grabbed her wrist eliciting slight surprise from her, "no don't stop…id feelds nide…"

Lucy smiled warmly at his request, she couldn't help but to comply as she shifted from playing with his hair to massaging his temples till he fell asleep; following along beside him not long after.

::***::

First night on the job was as smooth as it could go, Natsu received another treatment from Wendy before heading out with Erza, Gray and Lucy. The four oldest members felt it was better for Wendy, Charle and Happy to stay behind and guard the house during the remainder of their stay. Natsu finally got over his hay fever on the fourth day between doing the job and sleeping.

As for the bar, not many shady characters came in, though none too pleasant either. Natsu and Gray had no reason to use their magic or their brute strength. It wasn't until their third week when it seemed a lot of ex-convicts who didn't want to better themselves or had no love for regular society, started to come through. It was apparent to the A-team that this city was a regular dumping ground, and reports for crime had gotten a little bit high since when they first arrived, according to the towns paper.

"Heathen's Island" was slow for the night and the bar being the length of the restaurant's wall, made it feel even more empty. There were some obvious biker gang members sitting at a round table, discussing who knows what. One of the men kept shifting in his chair anxiously against the wooden floor. Grunts could be heard throughout the entire room; the smell of Marlboro Reds filled the air mixing with whiskey. Lucy could hear the occasional ting from one of their gold rings every time he flicked the end of his cigarette; as it clinked against the glass in place of an ash tray. The sound reverberated out since they were the last to leave.

Natsu and Gray kept a real good eye on this crew. You wouldn't know they were mages, since the requirements were to dress in all black. Natsu and Gray fidgeted uncomfortably in long sleeved jackets, shirts, ties and dress shoes. Lucy and Erza were required to wear all black short skirts, a low top and an apron in the front. The two women gave each other a look, before Lucy approached them once more as it was her table. Fortunately, none of them dared to make a pass, so far.

"Anything else for you gentleman?"

The man who she pegged as their leader looked her square in the eye. "If we need anything from ya blondie, we'll call you over. My men and I have worked hard today." He wore black leather vest, with a crest of two rifles pointing East and West with a skull in the center, above the symbol read "Stone Crossers". White hair revealed his age, even though he was very bulky. A wired beard hung braided, as cold grey eyes told stories of life within streets.

A really fat guy with half his beard missing from a scar that ran across his ear to underneath his jaw spoke up. "Ey boss, can we have three more rounds?"

He sniffed and smiled while putting his hand to his chin approvingly. He drawled out contentedly, "Ya heard that blondie? Three more rounds for me and my men, we aren't drunk enough yet."

"Right away."

It was muffled but Natsu while standing next to Gray was going livid, he could hear EVERYTHING they were saying about their waitress. They were the last guys in the joint and the manager already left telling them to close-up, stay safe and don't be afraid to ruffle some feathers in regard to the safety of his workers. Natsu was more than ready to ruffle some feathers. Fortunately, they were typical gang members, no magic at all so if there was a struggle there wouldn't be much blood.

Gray noticed too, he had been hearing things every now and then also. He was with Natsu, but they also didn't want to get fired. Unless one of them did something physical, they stayed put.

Natsu watched with keen eyes as Lucy brought three shots of Whisky, to each guest at the round table. There being ten of them it was quite a bit of work. He stiffened when Lucy went to grab the leader's makeshift ash tray.

"Blondie, din'd I say that I would tell you if I was done?"

Lucy being as quick a thinker as she is retorted pleasingly. "Quite right, it's to give you more room for your alcohol, and there's no space for your sixth round."

He chortled and patted her on the back, "I like yew blondie! Go ahead do your job."

Natsu didn't know he was holding his breath, till he removed his hand from his heart with a breathy sigh.

Gray shot Natsu a passing comment of, "If Juvia was in that position I'd be a nervous wreck too. Lucy is nakama to me, so I still feel what your feeling. Just not in that way."

Natsu silently raised a strong eyebrow as a response.

A little more time passed, and it was well past two in the morning, these members were clearly drunk at this point and showed no sign of leaving.

"Bllllooooonnnddddiiiieeeee c'mere."

Lucy looked at Erza with her brow twitching, she wanted to murder them.

"Yes, coming."

"So, blondie, ye gots a man in yo life?"

Answers rounded in her head, knowing yes would be her best bet and closest to the truth as well as save her from very possible harassment. She felt Loki pushing against her magic, sensing the trouble. "Yes, I do."

"Awww, no matta I can always show you a good time." To show he meant it he unceremoniously grabbed her wrist and pulled her close.

In the background Gray held Natsu's elbow, "Calm down, let Lucy handle it…for now." They both eyed Erza who had a sword ready underneath the counter just in case.

With more strength than the leader expected, Lucy pulled away. "No thank you, my…." she had to think of what she would call him, boyfriend didn't feel right, then a light bulb went off as a confident grin slid across her face. "My soulmate, wouldn't be all too happy with that."

He didn't look happy, in fact it seemed to worsen this man's mood. "Oh yea? Who is he, I'll squash him for a night wit' you."

She grinned knowing who she was about to mention, and that he was in earshot. "Ever hear of the man named Salamander?" All three of her friends went bug-eyed.

The table looked star struck. "THE Salamander? You're HIS woman?"

"Yeah, and what of it. He won't take too kindly to someone touching me." She flipped out her portable Lacrima device. "I can get him on the phone right now, tell him that you wanna' borrow me for a bit."

They looked terrified, the leader stopped put his hands up in defeat, his gruff voice laced with the smell of cigarettes and whisky in attempt to "disarm" the blondie. "I mean no harm, wouldn't want to mess with Salamander's woman. Don't want that heat on my arse. We'll pay for the drinks and leave ya a real nice tip. How's that sound?"

Lucy put the Lacrima device away and put on her best waitress voice. "It was a pleasure to serve you this very fine evening."

It was a sight to behold. Ten gang members shuffling about to help pay; and put a two-hundred jewel tip in for good measure. After they left the group of four finally relaxed.

"Lucy that was ballsy." Gray was impressed. "Any more of that and I think Salamander over here would have jumped out of his skin."

Natsu was quiet though, he pondered on why being called her soulmate felt so right; more importantly did she believe it. To him the way she sounded, made it seem like there was a bit of truth behind it. That it wasn't all a bluff. About five minutes of time passed with his mind going in circles. Tensely, he put his back against the door way and stared at her.

The very woman that he was baffled by flicked him in the forehead. "Natsu, you're going to set the place on fire if you keep thinking that hard…Within the time you stood there, I called the owner told him what happened, and he said we can clean up early, especially since it's so slow. C'mon let's prep everything and head out."

"Um hey wait…Lucy…about what you said back there…."

Looking back at him playfully chittered. "Which part?"

"Yeah, forget it. Good bluff, I would have kicked they're sorry asses if it went any further."

"Oh, yeah thanks." She felt crestfallen and could feel the lump in her throat build while looking down at her feet, only to perk up like what she said meant nothing at all. "They'd never suspect that the real Salamander was one of our best bouncers, yeah?"

Again, it tore at his gut the way she sounded, and he knew that fake smile from a thousand miles away. What ate at him more was how close to home that hit him. For some reason "soulmate" fit just right. Deeper than any other stupid "love" he's ever seen. "Y-yeah."

::**::

Clean up didn't take up too much time and allowed them to head home a sold two hours earlier. Both Gray and Natsu gave the girls whatever extra layer they had since it was so cold. Erza seemed alright, but she appreciated the gesture anyway. Afterwards, Natsu hung back from the others still deep in thought.

While walking, he stopped and stood straight, suddenly figuring out the best plan of action regarding Lucy. The best plan of action he dreaded but felt was necessary. He figured distancing himself from the celestial mage, till he could figure out what was up with him and these bizarre feelings, would be best for now.


	13. Chapter 13-Cold Desert Nights

A/N: I decided to do one more bridge chapter, this will be the last one for now before the push into the ruins. Originally I wanted this one and another one, but I decided that this will be the final filler chapter.

Now for my shout outs.

Next I've picked up to quite a few favorites and a shout out to them: **Brao, Fluffy the Terrible, JinxTitan, Kirinah, Lilygrace001, Valerie Gambino-Snyder, caboose97** and **nelly1210.** Thank you, all of you.

I'm happy to say I now have 21 followers too!  
Last but not least shout out to any ghosters! (ghosters are what I lovingly call those who pop in but either don't have an account or decide to casually check things out )

On with the story 3

Disclaimer: FT is not mine.

* * *

Chapter 13

Cold Desert Nights

He couldn't sleep, namely because there were strange sounds coming from Lucy's bedroom. Scratching the back of his head Natsu lazily walked over and placed an ear to her door. It sounded as though she was whimpering, almost in despair.

"What was that about distancing myself again?" Agitated with himself started to pace, then tap his feet, followed by annoyance only to see himself knock on her door with no answer. Deciding to screw it all, barged in anyway. A worn black blanket somehow had been knotted and kicked to the floor. Normally, if it was cold, Lucy would be bundled up in her warm pink pajamas; however, this was the desert and her typical sleeping attire for hotter weather is a white tank-top and loose cotton shorts. Today was their night off and he recalled that Lucy went to bed early not feeling too well. He pointed at her accusingly using a tone a little above a whisper. "Lucy…I swear to Igneel if you're sick…"

Her response was to soundlessly roll over in a tiny little ball, which prompted Natsu to make unintelligible complaints as he walked over to the bed kicking away her dirty laundry, scattered about the yellow stone floor. This also irked him since Lucy normally kept everything extremely tidy. He hadn't been sleeping lately himself and figured out, quite a bit ago, it was because he hasn't slept next to the Celestial mage in some time. Like it was a much-needed dose for his spirit.

The bed bounced as he plopped unceremoniously with his arm propping his head up in hopes to wake her. No dice. "Lucy…" He decided nudging her would work. "Damn it you're ice cold." More grumbling commenced as he got up, found the stupid blanket and realized it was only a thin sheet. "THIS is what you're sleeping with? Damn it Lucy can't I take my eyes off you for one second…." Sleepy Lucy only tucked herself further into a cold ball.

Natsu rolled his eyes, untangled the thing and spread it across her form. She coughed, it wasn't a normal dust in throat cough either, this was the type that spelled "sick" all over it. "Not tonight you aren't." He lifted the sheet, only to discover while doing so, that it had holes. He wondered how long without complaint did Lucy do this kind of thing. Tomorrow, he decided, he was going to use his personal jewels to buy her a fluffy warm quilt. Till then he slinked in next to her, raised his body temperature, like he's done many times before which prompted her to relax and wrap herself all around him like a pretzel.

Salamander couldn't help the smile that danced across his face. "Yeah, yeah, you're welcome." This was followed by an annoyed after thought with him wrapping his own body around hers with the sheet over their heads and nuzzled her. "Now don't get sick…"

::**::

Lucy stretched cozily, blinked her eyes to see that the room was a bit brighter and she felt much better as well as warm.

"Nope, you're staying right here. I didn't get all my snuggling in when we left home, I'm getting it now." For emphasis, flexed his arm around her torso which was enough to keep her in place.

After turning to face him, blinked and blinked again. "That wasn't a dream?"

The dragon raised his eyebrow. "Huh? What dream…Lucy go back to bed, you're tired."

"But Natsu, it gets extremely hot when the sun's up."

"Tch…then that's when we'll get up. Till then don't stress it."

"True, isn't that mage supposed to be here this week. It's already been about a month and a half…"

"Shhhh….sleeeeeeeep. Too tired to focus on it."

Lucy did as she was told and fell back asleep, though knowing with Natsu all wrapped around her, resisting was futile.

* * *

I realized that I wasn't staying consistent with where I placed my reviews, I went back and re-read what I said to make sure I stopped shifting around. I have one review!  
 **  
Anon:** That makes me super fuzzy on the inside. What timing! I love that you are still enjoying it. :D


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